Erinqua, the sixth Istari of Middle-Earth
by Baron Morpheus
Summary: Solana Evelyn Potter was living a rather boring life as an Auror after the defeat of Voldemort when she was whisked away on the midnight of her 25th birthday. Now she is stranded in Middle-Earth with the Deathly Hallows, her photo album, and a set of unknown red robes on her back. Is there a way back? And if there is, will she want to? Femslash. Awaiting rewrite.
1. Chapter 1: Arrival

**_New A/N: Yes, after three entire months; I AM BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! The break from Fanfiction was quite a bit longer than expected. For several times, I had tried to write the next chapter of this thing, but it just wouldn't work out well, and I would just scrap the entire thing._**

**_To get back in the mood for the continuation of Erinqua, I decided to re-write the current chapters! Well, not so much re-write as make them more readable. All I did was read through it again and change a few words here and there. The main purpose of this is so that I remember my plans for the story, so that I can write a decent chapter._**

**_If you're curious and want to read through the story again, or you just want to remember what the hell was going on - even I forgot, so you're excused - be my guest. Just don't expect any major changes._**

**_\- The Baron_**

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**(Old) A/N: Hello! I was browsing a community a few days ago when I came across a HP/Hobbit crossover. After exploring the different fics there, I decided to write one myself.**

**I find anything with Tolkien's universe fun to write, because her universe is just **_**so Fucking Huge!**_** You could literally spend a year reading about it, and you still wouldn't have read everything.**

**Anyway, I made this note to say the following to be sure; I own Harry Potter nor the Lord of the Rings universe; both belong to J. K. Rowling and J. R. R. Tolkien respectively.**

**Oh, and I know I said that I was on vacation for a week; well, the only reason I'm posting this is because I've got this chapter – and the next three – already written. It has been on my schedule for a while, you see.**

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_There was Ilúvatar, the All-father, and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made.  
And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music, and they sang before him, and he was glad.  
But for a long while they sang only each alone, or but few together, while the rest hearkened; for each comprehended only that part of mind of Ilúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly.  
Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony._

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

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**Chapter 1: Arrival**

Bilbo Baggins was living a perfectly happy life, in a homely burrow on The Hill, built by late his father for his late mother. Then, on a beautiful day with a bright sun and green grass, a wizard came along. Gandalf, to be precise. Gandalf invited him to go with him onto an adventure. Naturally, Bilbo said no, as no self-respecting hobbit would ever _dare_ go on an adventure; it simply wasn't done. Gandalf left, and Bilbo forgot all about him. In retrospect, it was quite unwise, for wizards never give up.

The next day, Dwarves came. Bearded Dwarves, from under the mountains. They entered without being invited, seated themselves at his table, and started eating his food. Now that wasn't so bad; every hobbit could appreciate someone who ate a lot. However, the Dwarves (from under the mountains) started throwing around his mother's plates, wiping their feet on the rugs, but _then_, then the wizard came again.

Oh, how Bilbo was starting to hate that pointed grey hat.

And just when Gandalf got everyone under control and seated at his dinner table – with the king under the mountain himself amongst them – and told Bilbo that "We are all here," and that it was "Quite the merry gathering," there was another knock.

Everyone blinked for a second, surprised, and then Bilbo was off again, opening his round, green door for the sixth time that day.

On the other side stood a young woman, a little smaller than Gandalf. She had fiery red hair that cascaded down her back and onto her red robes, reminiscent of the ones Gandalf wore, only more elegant. She had bright violet eyes, a colour Bilbo had never seen before anywhere except on flowers and clothes, and had smooth, pale skin, with a few freckles sprayed across her nose.

The woman appeared to be nervous, and was fiddling with the hem of her robes when he opened the door.

She blinked her violet eyes, and smiled. "Oh, hi! Erm, where am I? I'm kind of lost."

Bilbo stared at her with raised eyebrows. How could anyone _not_ know where they were, with Hobbits all around? He shook his head after a second. "Good morning. You're in Shire, Bag's end, to be precise. I am Bilbo Baggins, by the way."

The woman's eyes betrayed her confusion. "Shire? Where is it opposed to London?"

Bilbo frowned. "Lundun? What's a Lundun?"

The woman frowned. "How could you not –" She fell silent in the middle of her sentence. Clearly she had expected him to know about 'Lundun'. "Very well. Could I see a map, perhaps?"

Bilbo smiled widely at her. Helping someone, that he could do. It wasn't an adventure, after all. "Of course, my lady! Follow me."

He led her through the round hall into a side room, his study, where he kept a large map on the wall. If the woman was confused by the low ceiling, round halls, and the concept of living underground, as humans usually are, she didn't show it.

"Here we are," Bilbo said grandly as he waved at the map, which had a single red dot on it; the location of Shire. "The red dot's where we are right now. I suppose you're from Gondor, or Minas Thirth?"

The woman's face once again betrayed nothing. "Gondor." She answered after a few seconds, but Bilbo could sense that it wasn't the truth. She seemed friendly enough, though, so he let it pass. "Do you think I could sleep here tonight?"

"If you could tell me your name, yes, of course! I'll introduce you to the other guests afterwards." Bilbo answered brightly. The prospect of visitors is always a good thing, in any hobbit's eyes. That is, if they are invited and polite. Unlike those Dwarves.

"Solana Evelyn Potter. Though some call me – _Erinqua_."

Oo0oO

Solana was having a _very_ interesting night. The day before was completely normal up until midnight, except for the anticipation of her birthday the next day; she woke up, went to the Auror office, got floo'ed to come investigate a case, solved the case, arrested the one who did it, went back to the office, filed a report, and went back home with a good feeling in the evening.

However, it was when she went to sleep a bit past midnight, after reading through her photo album – it housed both her and her parents' photos, and it was warded better than Hogwarts and Gringotts combined; even Fiendyfire only singed the edges – that things started to get interesting.

She had a dream, first of all. Now that itself wasn't really interesting, but what the dream was about was. You see, there was nothing but black space, and voices in the background. Solana strained her ears to hear what they were talking about, but couldn't until they started talking louder, like they were coming closer. Solana could only catch snippets of their conversation, but what she could pick up, bothered her quite a bit – shady characters talking about your person wasn't regarded as a good thing.

_Solana Potter… sixth Istari… Erinqua… war is brewing… Erebor… The lonely mountain… Smaug… Sauron rising… End of the Third Age… _and then, a sudden clear voice, over all others, _Silence! She is here!_

It was silent for a few seconds, until the clear voice spoke again, sounding like Fake-Moody sounded when he put her under the Imperius curse.

_**Sleep, Erinqua.**_

_Are you talking to me? Why would I sleep? _Her voice of reason countered, even as she yawned. After a second, the voice sounded again, much more forceful.

_**SLEEP!**_

And that time, even her voice of reason couldn't save her, and she fell asleep in her dream – because in the world of magic, everything is possible.

When Solana woke up, she found herself hugging her photo album to her chest, suddenly wearing elegant red robes, with the ever-present invisibility cloak, Resurrection stone, and Elder wand on her shoulders, finger, and strapped to her arm respectively. However, when she looked around, she found herself on top of a hill – The Hill, she would find out later – instead of in her bed, snuggled comfortably into her covers.

Oo0oO

Bilbo opened the door to the dining room – which was round and green like the rest in his house – and immediately all conversation stopped. The twelve Dwarves and Gandalf looked up and saw Bilbo entering, followed by a human female; the dwarves immediately frowned and placed their hands on their weapons, recognizing a fellow warrior, female as though she may be. Gandalf kept his hands on the table calmly as Bilbo introduced them.

"Solana, this is Gandalf the wizard," Only said wizard noticed Solana's eyes widen slightly at his introduction, "and company. Gandalf and company, this is Solana Potter."

Solana waved a bit and turned to leave, telling them that she didn't want to interrupt them, before Gandalf spoke up. "Come, sit with us, _Erinqua_. I will introduce you to the Dwarves." The Dwarves around the table shot Gandalf irritated glances as Solana froze in the doorway, turned back around and, with a nod, took a seat at the table provided by Bilbo. She wondered how Gandalf knew about that title; maybe he was one of the voices? Or knew the people belonging to them?

"Solana, these are the twelve Dwarven lords; Ori, Nori, Dori, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bombur, Bofur, Bifur, and the future King under the mountain, Thorin Oakenshield." Gandalf pointed at different dwarves every time he said their names, and they all grunted in acknowledgement.

"I'm honoured." Solana said kindly, and Thorin snorted rudely. "As you should be." She rolled her eyes; after dealing with her co-Auror Draco Malfoy for almost a decade, she was used to snobbish and pompous behaviour.

"We were just about to have tea." Gandalf announced. "I hope there is something left for the late-comers to eat and drink! What's that? Tea! No thank you! A little red wine, I think, for me." "And for me," said Thorin. "And raspberry jam and apple-tart," said Dwalin. "And mince-pies and cheese," said Bofur. "And pork-pie and salad," said Oin. "And more cakes-and ale-and coffee, if you don't mind," called the other dwarves. "Put on a few eggs, there's a good fellow!" Gandalf called after him, as the hobbit stumped off to the pantries. "And just bring out the cold chicken and pickles!"

Solana merely blinked in bemusement and slight amusement. Apparently, Hobbits and Dwarves ate a lot. "How did you come about these parts, lassie?" One of the dwarves – Gloin, if Solana remembered correctly – asked merrily, even as the other dwarves started talking to themselves.

"I don't know, really." Solana admitted. "I woke up here. My…" She had decided upon an easy-to-remember backstory, and paused for a second, blinking quickly as she was suddenly in tears - she'd only just realized that she might never see her friends again, unless she found a way back. "My village burned down, just last night. I couldn't do anything to save them – my magic was acting wonky – and…" She noticed the entire table had stilled, and they were looking at her with wide eyes. Gandalf continued puffing his pipe, as if he had known all along. He most likely did; Dumbledore was exactly the same, they could have been twins. "What?"

The dwarves exchanged glances. "Lassie," Gloin said, "Only the Istari have..." He waved a hand around, trying to find the right word, before apparently settling on "non-passive magic."

Solana frowned. "What are Istari? I've heard about them, but…"

Gandalf spoke up. "Istari are, basically, Maiar in human form, send to aid the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth against Sauron. But I'm seeing that I'm using unfamiliar terms, so I'll have to explain a bit of background.

"It all starts with the Éru Ilúvatar. He is the supreme deity; some crude eastern civilizations call him God. He shaped Arda, or as most Men call it, Earth. But before that, he created the Ainur, or the Holy Ones as they are called.

"The Ainur encompass two groups; the Maiar, and the Valar. The Valar are fifteen Ainur who entered Arda after its creation, to give order to the world. One, Melkor, turned against the others and they have been in war ever since. Part of the Valar's job is to combat Melkor.

"The Maiar are spirits, descended to Arda to help the Valar shape the earth. There are a lot of us, but many have gone back to Éru. Sauron was one of us, too, before he turned to Melkor.

"There are but five Istari. There is Saruman the White, chief among us; Radagast the Brown, a friend of animals, but he mostly keeps to himself; There are the friends, Alatar and Pallando the Blue, though I have not seen both in a very long time; And then there is me, Gandalf the Grey."

"Oh."

Gandalf chuckled. "Yes, oh indeed."

"Erm, how do I explain… just watch, I guess." Solana said, pulling out her wand – which looked like a stick to the rest of the company, even Gandalf – and silently vanished the dirt and grime on the floor, fixed a crack in the wall, and floated a random jar on a shelf.

Everyone – even Gandalf – was staring at her in amazement. Solana squirmed under their gazes. "What?" She asked after a few seconds of rather uncomfortable silence.

"There have been tales," Bombur spoke up, startling everyone; he almost never spoke, but when he did, it was on a matter of grave importance. "Of the witch, using a stick to channel magic, clad in red. _Erinqua_, she was called in some tales. Nightshade in others. Sometimes even the sixth Istari. The stories varied; in some the witch fought a large snake, in others a dragon, a hundred floating Nazgûl, armies of dark servants with magic, or a snake-man with red eyes. But," Bombur halted for a second, "in all, she leads Middle-Earth into the Fourth Age; the age post-Sauron."

And then he fell silent again, leaving everyone to contemplate the news that had just been brought onto them. Solana, in particular was worried. It descripted her life perfectly; the Basilisk, the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament, Death Eaters, Voldemort, and, if Nazgûl were what she thought they were, Dementors. She was called _Erinqua_ by the voices, and now Gandalf, and her own name – Solana – was a shorter version of the Latin name for the Nightshade plants, _Solanaceae._

That was when a happily humming Bilbo entered, balancing trays on other trays, holding eggs, bacon, several pies, salad, jam, bread, wine, and water. When he noticed the quiet room, and the thoughtful faces, he stopped and stared. "What happened?"

"Oh, don't worry about it." Solana said with a forced smile, flicking her wand and levitating the trays and mugs onto the table. Bilbo blinked, then shrugged; he had seen weirder things brought home by his grandfather, the Old Took.

Everyone quickly started eating, and conversation built up again until they were happily talking, shouting at times to further accentuate their tales, talking, and talking some more, until at last, everyone shoved their seats back, and Bilbo made a move to collect the glasses.

"I suppose you will all stay to supper?" he asked in a polite voice that Solana could hear was forced.

"Of course!" said Thorin. "And after. We shan't get through the business till late, and we must have some music first. Now to clear up!" Thereupon the twelve dwarves – not Thorin, because apparently he was too important, and stayed talking to Gandalf – jumped to their feet and made tall piles of all the things. Off they went, not waiting for trays, balancing columns of plates, each with a bottle on the top, with one hand, while the hobbit ran after them almost squeaking with fright: "Please be careful!" and "Please, don't trouble! I can manage." But the dwarves only started to sing, and Gandalf and Solana started chuckling and giggling – respectively, of course – instead of helping him:

"_Chip the glasses and crack the plates!_

"_Blunt the knives and bend the forks!_

"_That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!_

"_Smash the bottles and burn the corks!_

"_Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!_

"_Pour the milk on the pantry floor!_

"_Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!_

"_Splash the wine on every door!_

"_Dump the crocks in a boiling bawl;_

"_Pound them up with a thumping pole;_

"_And when you've finished, if any are whole,_

"_Send them down the hall to roll !_

"_That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!_

"_So, careful! Careful with the plates!"_

Of course they did none of these dreadful things, and everything was cleaned and put away safe as quick as lightning, while Bilbo was turning round and round in the middle of the kitchen trying to see what they were doing. A mere ten minutes after they had left it, they were walking back to the dining room, eleven dwarves humming happily and one hobbit in need of a cup of tea to calm down from the stress.


	2. Chapter 2: Songs

_And it came to pass that Ilúvatar called together all the Ainur and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed;  
And the glory of its beginning and the splendour of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Ilúvatar and were silent._

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

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**Chapter 2: Songs**

When they went back, they found Thorin with his feet on the fender smoking a pipe. He was blowing the most enormous smoke-rings, and wherever he told one to go, it went – up the chimney, or behind the clock on the mantelpiece, or under the table, or round and round the ceiling; but wherever it went it was not quick enough to escape Gandalf, or Solana. Pop! They sent a smaller smoke-ring from their pipes – both short clay ones, clearly belonging to Gandalf – straight through each one of Thorin's.

Whenever Gandalf's smoke-ring popped Thorin's, it would go green and come back to hover over the wizard's head. He had quite a cloud of them about him already, and in the dim light it made him look strange and sorcerous.

Solana, however, made other shapes; ships sailed across the room, horses galloped, strange red birds flew, and lightning struck as fast as, well, lightning; after they popped one of Thorin's smoke rings, they would turn into a pink ring and settle onto her wand; her wand was almost filled up by the time they returned.

Bilbo stood still and watched – he loved smoke-rings – and then be blushed, thinking how proud he had been yesterday morning of the smoke-rings he had sent up the wind over The Hill.

"Now for some music!" Thorin said suddenly, braking Gandalf and Solana's concentration and dispelling their smoke. "Bring out the instruments!"

Kili and Fili rushed for their bags and brought back little fiddles, and Dori, Nori, and Ori brought out flutes from somewhere inside their coats; Bombur produced a drum from the hall; Bifur and Bofur went out too, and came back with clarinets that they had left among the walking-sticks. Balin said, "Excuse me, I left mine in the porch!"

Thorin waved the apology away. "Just bring mine in with you."

The dwarves came back with viols as big as themselves, and with Thorin's harp wrapped in a green cloth. It was a beautiful golden harp, and when Thorin struck it the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Solana forgot everything else, and was swept away into the arms of music. The dark came into the room from the little window that opened in the side of The Hill; the firelight flickered and still they played on, while the shadow of Gandalf's beard wagged against the wall. The dark filled all the room, and the fire died down, and the shadows were lost, and still they played on. And suddenly first one and then another began to sing as they played, deep-throated singing that reminded Solana of Hagrid.

And then Solana began to sing, high above the others; they began to play a bit softer just to hear her better, and only hummed with the song. Solana, somehow, knew the lyrics, as if she had heard the song many a time before.

"_Far over the misty mountains cold,_

"_To dungeons deep and caverns old,_

"_We must away ere break of day,_

"_To seek the pale enchanted gold._

"_The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,_

"_While hammers fell like ringing bells,_

"_In places deep, where dark things sleep,_

"_In hollow halls beneath the fells._

"_For ancient king and elvish lord,_

"_There many a gleaming golden hoard,_

"_They shaped and wrought, and light they caught,_

"_To hide in gems on hilt of sword._

"_On silver necklaces they strung,_

"_The flowering stars, on crowns they hung,_

"_The dragon-fire, in twisted wire,_

"_They meshed the light of moon and sun._

There was an instrumental pause, filled with major sounds, before the music settled down again, and Solana began singing slightly lower, in order to be able to sing more forcefully.

"_Far over the misty mountains cold,_

"_To dungeons deep and caverns old,_

"_We must away, ere break of day,_

"_To claim our long-forgotten gold._

"_Goblets they carved there for themselves,_

"_And harps of gold; where no man delves,_

"_There lay they long, and many a song,_

"_Was sung unheard by men or elves._

"_The pines were roaring on the height,_

"_The winds were moaning in the night._

"_The fire was red, it flaming spread;_

"_The trees like torches biased with light,_

"_The bells were ringing in the dale,_

"_And men looked up with faces pale;_

"_The dragon's ire more fierce than fire,_

"_Laid low their towers and houses frail._

"_The mountain smoked beneath the moon;_

"_The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom._

"_They fled their hall to dying fall,_

"_Beneath his feet, beneath the moon."_

The music settled down once again from its crescent, and accompanied by the soft violins and low horn, Solana began singing even higher than before.

"_Far over the misty mountains grim,_

"_To dungeons deep and caverns dim,_

"_We must away, ere break of day,_

"_To win our harps and gold from him."_

Everyone was staring at Solana when the song ended. Legends had told of the Valar singing, playing in the time when the world was shaped, before Melkor sought more power; they knew, somehow, that it was somewhat like what they had just heard.

Solana saw everyone staring at her, near open-mouthed, and flushed; she'd never sung in front of anyone else before, but she got swept away in the music.

She coughed once, clearing her throat, before continuing with the last verse of the Dwarven song, which was sung even slower, accompanied without music;

"_Far over the misty mountains cold,_

"_To dungeons deep and caverns old,_

"_We must away ere break of day,_

"_To slay the one that hoards out gold."_

Then all was silent for a for a few seconds, until Thorin stood up, and by the way the other dwarves put away their instruments, it was clear the music was over. "Gandalf, Miss Solana, dwarves, and Mr. Baggins! We are not together in the house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit – may the hair on his toes never fall out! All praise to his wine and ale!" He paused for breath and for a polite remark from the hobbit, but the compliments were obviously – at least to Solana – quite lost on Bilbo, who was wagging his mouth in protest at being called audacious and fellow conspirator, though no noise came out, he was so flummoxed. So Thorin, thinking the Hobbit agreed, went on:

"We are met to discuss our plans, our ways, means, policy and devices. We shall soon before the break of day start on our long journey, a journey from which some of us, or perhaps all of us – except our friend and counsellor, the ingenious wizard Gandalf – may never return. It is a solemn moment. Our object is, I take it, well known to us all. To the estimable Mr. Baggins, Solana, and perhaps to one or two of the younger dwarves – I think I should be right in naming Kili and Fili, for instance – the exact situation at the moment may require a little brief explanation –"

But Thorin never got to finish his sentence, because Bilbo suddenly let out a loud shriek and tumbled, falling out of the door.

They all blinked. Then stared at the door that had slammed closed. Until Gandalf chuckled. And then they laughed, loud and hard; nobody had expected such a reaction. After a few minutes, they settled down, and Gloin spoke up.

"Humph!" He snorted, "Will he do, do you think? It is all very well for Gandalf to talk about this hobbit being fierce, but one shriek like that in a moment of excitement would be enough to wake the dragon and all his relatives, and kill the lot of us. I think it sounded more like fright than excitement! In fact, if it bad not been for the sign on the door, I should have been sure we had come to the wrong house. As soon as I clapped eyes on the little fellow bobbing and puffing on the mat, I had my doubts. He looks more like a grocer than a burglar!"

Suddenly, the door creaked open, and Solana turned to look at it, and the Hobbit that came through; she saw the others do the same.

"Pardon me," Bilbo said politely, "if I have overheard words that you were saying. I don't pretend to understand what you are talking about, or your reference to burglars, but I think I am right in believing that you think I am no good. I will show you. I have no signs on my door – it was painted a week ago – and I am quite sure you have come to the wrong house. As soon as I saw your funny faces on the doorstep, I had my doubts. But treat it as the right one. Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert. I had a great-great-great-granduncle once, Bullroarer Took, and –"

"Yes, yes, but that was long ago," said Gloin, waving the comment away. "I was talking about you. And I assure you there is a mark on this door – the usual one in the trade, or used to be. Burglar wants a good job, plenty of excitement and a reasonable reward, that's how it is usually read. You can say Expert Treasure-hunter instead of Burglar if you like. Some of them do. It's all the same to us. Gandalf told us that there was a man of the sort in these parts looking for a Job at once, and that he had arranged for a meeting here this Wednesday tea-time."

"Of course there is a mark," interrupted Gandalf. "I put it there myself. For very good reasons. You asked me to find the fourteenth man for your expedition, and I chose Mr. Baggins. Just let anyone say I chose the wrong man or the wrong house, and you can stop at thirteen and have all the bad luck you like, or go back to digging coal."

He scowled so angrily at Gloin that the dwarf huddled back in his chair; and when Bilbo tried to open his mouth to ask a question, he turned and frowned at him and stuck out his bushy eyebrows, till Bilbo shut his mouth tight with a snap. "That's right," said Gandalf. "Let's have no more argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be good enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself. You may – possibly – all live to thank me yet. Now –"

"Erm, can I say something?" Solana piped up, making everyone look at her. "If Bilbo doesn't want this job," Bilbo shook his head quickly when she turned to look for confirmation, "I am offering my services as a Burglar."

The assembled men all frowned at her – except Bilbo, who was beaming – until Gandalf spoke up. "Have you stolen before, then?"

Solana grinned cheekily, procuring a key from her pocket, which she had performed a switching spell on with a bit of dirt when Gandalf wasn't looking and it stuck out of his pocket. "I believe this is yours, Gandalf." She said, handing it to Gandalf who chuckled.

"I had it in my pocket, and I'm certain you didn't reach in there. How did you take it?"

"Trade secret." Solana said with a grin, chuckling with the others at her – admittedly terrible – joke.

"Very well. You shall be the fourteenth member of the party, and Mr. Baggins will stay here, at his home, if that is what Mr. Baggins wishes."

Bilbo cheered and hugged Solana in happiness. "Thank you, Solana. I'm not sure what I did to deserve such a… friend? Acquaintance? Visitor?"

Solana chuckled as Bilbo released the hug. "Friend would be appropriate, after tonight."

"Very well." Thorin spoke up. "We will continue in the morning. For now, we need a place to rest. Mr. Baggins?"

"Certainly!" Bilbo said happily, and was soon pushing couches, blankets, and cushions around to make enough room for thirteen dwarves, a witch, and a wizard.

That night, just before everyone was asleep, they heard a soft voice singing from the study, where Solana had decided to sleep. It seemed to lift their spirits; the entire party suddenly _knew_ they would make it; in a coffin or not. Smaug would be destroyed, and the Lonely Mountain would belong to the Dwarves once again.

"_Far over the misty mountains cold,_

"_To dungeons deep and caverns old,_

"_We must away ere break of day,_

"_To slay the one that hoards out gold."_


	3. Chapter 3: Journeying

_Then said Ilúvatar: "Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music.  
"And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will.  
"But I win sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song."_

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Journeying**

"Lassie? Wake up, lassie!" A gruff voice penetrated the peaceful haze of Solana's dreams, and she woke up with a surprised intake of breath.

"What is it?" She asked the dwarf – Balin, if she remembered correctly – that stood beside her bed after a second, already in his clothes, mace on his back.

"We're leaving. Are you comfortable wearing that?" Balin asked, referring to the red robes she still wore. When Solana nodded, he marched out of the small door, beckoning her to follow him.

After checking that her possessions were still in their right places, she followed the Dwarf out the door, and down the hall, where she grabbed a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink to write a small notice to Bilbo.

_Dear Bilbo,_

_I would like to thank you for your hospitality. I'm afraid the Dwarves are set upon leaving on an hour before the sun rises, and I have no chance to say goodbye._

_I promise that, should I survive this venture, I will come visit you with some form of souvenir. However, should we not meet again – and you can only presume I am dead after five years, no earlier, for I estimate the journey to take two years in the least – I will say that it was an honour meeting you, my friend._

_Solana Evelyn Potter, _Erinqua_._

After folding it closed and writing _Bilbo Baggins_ on the top, she left it in the middle of the dining table, and walked out of the front door.

The Dwarves and Gandalf were bent over two pieces of parchment and a silver key, which Thorin seemed to guard possessively. Thorin looked up when she approached. "Ah, you've arrived. Good. Here," He turned around one of the pieces of parchment, "Sign there."

Solana raised an eyebrow and sat down at the table they were crowded around. The terms were straight-forward, unlike those of the Wizarding World; cash on delivery, up to and not exceeding one fourteenth of total profits (if any); all traveling expenses guaranteed in any event; and funeral expenses to be defrayed by the line of Durin and representatives, if occasion arises and the matter is not otherwise arranged for.

Suddenly it hit Solana like a wave; she might never go back home. Sure, she missed Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville, little Teddy, and Hermione and Ron's children, but it might be possible that there was simply _no way back_. The day before, there had been some kind of notion that she could possibly still go back, but that notion was ripped apart like Fluffy ripped apart his meat after reading the 'funeral' bit.

It took a few seconds for her brain to reboot, but when it did, she immediately signed the contract on the line under _Burglar_. Thorin grinned and clapped once when she did. "Wonderful! Now, this is a Dwarven map of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, lassie, made by my grandfather. This here is the front entrance," He tapped a large gap in one of the walls, and Solana nodded.

Thorin continued, "Now, we wouldn't have needed this map, if it weren't for something Gandalf pointed out to me this morning. Over here," He tapped a seemingly random wall, "Is a secret entrance. I can't imagine that Smaug doesn't know about it, but because it is so small – five feet high and 'three may walk abreast' – a dragon wouldn't be able to go through there if it was a week old. This key," Thorin held up the small object, "fits in the hole. We will tell you the rest of the story on the road; for now, we must go."

And with that he stood up and gathered his equipment, setting off in the direction of a small stream, and leaving the others to pick up their own backpacks and jog a little to catch up behind him.

Oo0oO

"You said you would tell me the rest of the story, Bofur?"

After catching up to Thorin, they had walked to a nearby inn, and bought a couple of horses; it took a little while, but Gandalf eventually caught up to them from wherever he went, upon his own horse Shadowfax. They hadn't ridden a hundred feet when Solana had asked the question.

Bofur nodded, but Thorin spoke up from in front and said, "Aye, lassie." He seemed to sigh as Solana spurred her horse on to ride beside him. Thorin shot a glance at her, before turning his eyes back on the road.

"Long ago in my grandfather Thror's time our family was driven out of the far North, and came back with all their wealth and their tools to this Mountain on the map. It had been discovered by my far ancestor, Thrain the Old, but now they mined and they tunnelled and they made huger halls and greater workshops – and in addition I believe they found a good deal of gold and a great many jewels too.

"Anyway, they grew immensely rich and famous, and my grandfather was King under the Mountain again and treated with great reverence by the mortal men, who lived to the South, and were gradually spreading up the Running River as far as the valley overshadowed by the Mountain. They built the merry town of Dale there in those days. Kings used to send for our smiths, and reward even the least skilful most richly. Fathers would beg us to take their sons as apprentices, and pay us handsomely, especially in food-supplies, which we never bothered to grow or find for ourselves. Altogether those were good days for us, and the poorest of us had money to spend and to lend, and leisure to make beautiful things just for the. fun of it, not to speak of the most marvellous and magical toys, the like of which is not to be found in the world now-a-days. So my grandfather's halls became full of armour and jewels and carvings and cups, and the toy-market of Dale was the wonder of the North.

"Undoubtedly, that was what brought the dragon. Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know, from men and elves and dwarves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live – which is practically forever, unless they are killed – and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value; and they can't make a thing for themselves, not even mend a little loose scale of their armour. There were lots of dragons in the North in those days, and gold was probably getting scarce up there, with the dwarves flying south or getting killed, and all the general waste and destruction that dragons make going from bad to worse.

"There was a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm called Smaug. One day he flew up into the air and came south. The first we heard of it was a noise like a hurricane coming from the North, and the pine-trees on the Mountain creaking and cracking in the wind. Some of the dwarves who happened to be outside – I was one luckily fine adventurous lad in those days, always wandering about, and it saved my life that day – well, from a good way off we saw the dragon settle on our mountain in a spout of flame. Then he came down the slopes and when he reached the woods they all went up in fire. By that time all the bells were ringing in Dale and the warriors were arming. The dwarves rushed out of their great gate; but there was the dragon waiting for them. None escaped that way.

"The river rushed up in steam and a fog fell on Dale, and in the fog the dragon came on them and destroyed most of the warriors – the usual unhappy story, it was only too common in those days. Then, he went back and crept in through the Front Gate and routed out all the halls, and lanes, and tunnels, alleys, cellars, mansions and passages. After that there were no dwarves left alive inside, and he took all their wealth for himself. Probably, for that is the dragons' way, he has piled it all up in a great heap far inside, and sleeps on it for a bed. Later he used to crawl out of the great gate and come by night to Dale, and carry away people, especially maidens, to eat, until Dale was ruined, and all the people dead or gone. What goes on there now I don't know for certain, but I don't suppose anyone lives nearer to the Mountain than the far edge of the Long Lake now-a-days.

"The few of us that were well outside sat and wept in hiding, and cursed Smaug; and there we were unexpectedly joined by my father and my grandfather with singed beards. They looked very grim but they said very little. When I asked how they had got away, they told me to hold my tongue, and said that one day in the proper time I should know. After that we went away, and we have had to earn our livings as best we could up and down the lands, often enough sinking as low as blacksmith-work or even coalmining. But we have never forgotten our stolen treasure. And even now, when I will allow we have a good bit laid by and are not so badly off," – here Thorin stroked the gold chain round his neck – "we still mean to get it back, and to bring our curses home to Smaug – if we can.

"I have often wondered about my father's and my grandfather's escape. I see now they must have had a private Side-door which only they knew about." He seemed to grin a bit. "That's one mystery solved in this world of riddles."

And with that, he fell silent again, leaving Solana to think about what she had just heard. Gandalf handed her one of his pipes, and Solana smiled slightly, shaking her head in thanks, before flicking her wand and conjuring her own small, wooden one. Smoking a pipe was something she had picked up on the evenings after a long day at work, and the pipe itself was always wooden. The few things like that – a wooden pipe instead of a clay one, for example – kept her from growing homesick.

Soon, Gandalf and Solana were doing a contest of who could make the most amazing smoke-figures, ranging from a red Phoenix that fire-transported itself around, to a gigantic smoke ring Gandalf made, encircling the entire party for a second before dispelling.

The party went along quite merrily, telling stories or singing songs as they rode forward all day, except of course when they stopped for meals. Solana almost never sung, but when she did, the lyrics all seemed to have a deep meaning, deeper than even Gandalf could ever hope to understand. Solana herself was confused about her suddenly amazing singing voice, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

At first they passed through hobbit-lands, a wild respectable country inhabited by friendly folk, with good roads, an inn or two, and now and then a dwarf or a farmer ambling by on business. Then they came to lands where people spoke strangely, and sang songs nobody of their party – except Gandalf – had ever heard before. Now they had gone on far into the Lone-lands, where there were no people left, no inns, and the roads grew steadily worse. Not far ahead were dreary hills, rising higher and higher, dark with trees. On some of them were old castles with an evil look, as if they had been built by wicked people. Everything seemed gloomy, for the weather that day had taken a nasty turn. Mostly it had been as good as May – which it was, according to Nori – can be, even in merry tales, but now it was cold and wet. In the Lone-lands they had to camp when they could, but at least it had been dry.

Wind soon got up, and the willows along the river-bank bent and sighed. A rushing red river, swollen with the rains of the last few days, came down from the hills and mountains in front of them. Soon it was nearly dark. The winds broke up the grey clouds, and a waning moon appeared above the hills between the flying rags. Then they stopped, and Thorin muttered something about supper, "And where shall we get a dry patch to sleep on?" Not until then did they notice that Gandalf was missing. So far he had come all the way with them, never saying if he was in the adventure or merely keeping them company for a while. He had eaten most, talked most, and laughed most. But now he simply was not there at all.

"How – when did he –" Solana stuttered in astonishment, feeling completely sure that the old wizard had been there just a few minutes before. She shook her head. "Never mind." And then, before the dwarves could do anything, she set about setting up camp; with two dozen deft flicks of her wand, the tents were up, a fire was cackling, the wind was blocked by a small brick wall, and most of the horses were tethered to a tree.

'Most of', because Oin's horse had suddenly perked up and bolted, running straight past Fili and Kili and straight into the water behind them, taking the young dwarves with it.

"No! Accio Fili, Accio Kili, Accio horse in the water, Accio food!" In her distress, Solana yelled the incantations, and the dwarves and horse shot out of the water, and onto a quickly-cushioned area. However, the last incantation wasn't the smartest, because several latches on other horses flew open and more food came flying out, mingling with the wet food on a hastily-conjured blanket.

Solana groaned and set about trying to dry the soaked food, while an equally soaked Fili and Kili tried to tether the wet horse to the same tree as the other horses.

However, due to the concentration on the food, Solana failed to notice the wall crashing down. What she did notice, however, was the fire snuffing out seconds later.

"Oh, great."

"Hey, look, Bert, William! Manflesh!" A loud voice suddenly yelled, and the ground shook wildly as thundering footsteps sounded.

Solana looked around wildly, keeping her wand stored in case the attacker might break it. She had just glimpsed the Dwarves getting ready to draw their weapons when she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head, and all went black.

* * *

**Review Replies!**

**SpikeySugarBomb: As you see in this chapter, she isn't OP, and it isn't just becoming a camping trip, because I wouldn't even want to write that. There is one time she'll be OP in the coming chapters, but it has a very clear reason. And I do believe that this chapter answered your other question as well.**

**RealityInk: I completely agree. Frankly, it annoys me to no end that 75 percent of the LotR/HP crossovers are slash. This is actually the same for the LotR fics, about half of them are slash between Bilbo and someone else. And another ten percent is Fem!Bilbo with a male character – problem is, they still call Fem!Bilbo Bilbo, so I constantly think Bilbo's male. It's irritating.**

**The reason why I said that I didn't know if it would become Solana/Tauriel is because I'm not sure how to incorporate her into the storyline. I'm sure I can figure something out, though. And I don't know what Tolkien was thinking when he thought Tauriel/Fili or Kili (can't remember which) would be a good idea…**

**Skendo: I know I said that, but as I said in the above reply, I said that because I don't know how to incorporate Tauriel into the storyline yet. I might make it so it's a brief romance, and then continue it after the Hobbit storyline – I just don't know yet.**

**HomeByTwilight: It's something that has bugged me as well. I've encountered few enough that I can count them on two hands, even. Whenever I can, I write femslash, but I don't want to seem like I'm a mindless teenage boy driven by his hormones, if you get my meaning. In any case, It's most likely going to by Solana/Tauriel, and I'm copying and pasting part of the review above; **_**I don't know how to incorporate Tauriel into the storyline yet. I might make it so it's a brief romance, and then continue it after the Hobbit storyline – I just don't know yet.**_

**And, of course, Thank You to the rest of the reviewers.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Last Homely House

_Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music;  
And a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.  
Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days.  
Then shall the themes of Ilúvatar be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand his intent in their part, and shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased._

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

* * *

**Chapter 4: The Last Homely House**

Solana was in a haze; she didn't know where she was, how she came to be there, what the haze was; all she knew was that voices were calling her, but she couldn't come to them.

"Wake… Up… Solana… Up…" Several soft voices said, not loud enough to understand more than a single word at once. And then, just like with her dream a few weeks earlier, someone shouted clearly, "_Erinqua_! Wake up, Manwë damn it!"

With a gasp, her mind returned to her body, her eyes shot open, and she stared into the worried face of Gandalf, the other dwarves looking at her from a slight distance.

"What happened?" Solara asked groggily, rubbing her eyes and sitting up. Gandalf frowned.

"From what I understand, three trolls had spotted your fire, and had come to investigate, and, should there be anything edible – like humans, dwarves, and ponies – eat. You were knocked out by a hit to the head, and the Dwarves swiped up before they could do a thing. They were about to eat Bombur when dawn came; I had held them off long enough, imitating William the Troll, so that they didn't notice how much time had passed. They were turned to stone immediately."

Solana sighed, relieved that nobody got hurt. Gandalf wasn't done yet, however.

"Unfortunately, they ate all of our food first. We managed to find a lot in the troll's stash, though, so we have more than enough. We also found a few weapons; mostly dwarf- and hobbit-sized, but there was a single human-sized one that wasn't broken. Here." The wizard handed Solana a sword; she gasped upon seeing it. She recognized it from the Chamber of Secrets, and the Horcrux hunt; it was the Sword of Gryffindor.

"Wow," She whispered, accepting the handle with a grateful nod. She gave it an experimental swing; exactly the same weight as she remembered it to be, from when she had trained with it during the Horcrux hunt. There wasn't much else to do during that time, after all.

She pricked her finger on the end of it experimentally, and felt the sting Basilisk venom gave her. Apparently the coating was still there; that would help a lot.

It was during the Chamber of Secrets incident that Solana found out she was immune to Basilisk venom; she'd wanted to pick up the basilisk fang that was injected in her arm and, subsequently, in the diary, but accidently pricked her finger on the end. She'd been prepared to call Fawkes to give another tear, already preparing her 'I'm sorry' speech in her head, but she found that all it did was sting a bit.

"Don't do what I just did." She told the assembled dwarves and Gandalf, who all looked curious. "I'm immune to the poison, but anyone else will die within a few seconds. I had this sword before, but lost it." It was, indeed, lost during the Battle of Hogwarts at the end of the war. Neville had chopped Nagini's head off, but the force made him lose his grip on the sword; it tumbled off the edge of the bridge, and though many tried, nobody could find it.

"We shan't. Now, let us eat before we go any farther; on my journey, I met a few riders from Rivendell. It is but a few days away."

This brightened everyone up considerably, and, after half an hour of breakfast, they set off again, accompanied by Solana's singing.

"_Travelling the road, last known is where I want to be,_

"_My compass directing, electing, an open road with golden trees._

"_But there's an old man in need on the ground, I try not to make a sound,_

"_He holds out his hand as I walk away, I hear him say,_

"_Please don't be a stranger in my place,_

"_Please don't be, a stranger in my place.__"_

Oo0oO

They did not sing or tell stories the next day, even though the weather improved; nor did they the day after, nor the day after that. They had begun to feel that danger was not far away.

One morning, a week after the Troll incident, they forded a river at a wide shallow place full of the noise of stones and foam. The far bank was steep and slippery. When they got to the top of it, leading their ponies, they saw that the great mountains had marched down very near to them. Already they it seemed only a day's easy journey from the feet of the nearest. Dark and drear it looked, though there were patches of sunlight on its brown sides, and behind its shoulders the tips of snow-peaks gleamed.

Thorin sighed upon seeing it, talking for Solana's benefit. "That is only the beginning of the Misty Mountains, and we have to get through, or over, or under those somehow, before we can come into Wilderland beyond. And it is a deal of a way even from the other side of them to the Lonely Mountain in the East, where Smaug lies on our treasure." He shot a glance at his female companion, whose eyes were big. "Come, we must keep moving. I have a feeling that whatever is pursuing us isn't far behind."

Oo0oO

It was a tiring path, filled with many hobbles, stones, hills, and vales. Then, just as Solana's pony began to stumble over roots and stone, they came to the edge of a steep fall in the ground so suddenly that Gandalf's horse nearly slipped down the slope. "Here it is at last!" he called, and the others gathered round him and looked over the edge.

There was a valley far below; there was the noise of the running water at the bottom; the scent of trees was in the air; and there was a light on the valley-side across the water. When they entered the little cave, Solana felt wards, extremely powerful ones, pass over them; they were benevolent, though, unless you supported Sauron or his beliefs, so she didn't mention them to the others.

Ward-sensing was something she had learned from Bill Weasley after the war, and luckily, it wasn't difficult to learn to someone who had mastered Occlumency – Bill himself wasn't a master Occlumens and it had taken two years for him to learn. It was the same as the Fidelus charm, really, only much weaker; if you didn't know what wards feel like, you wouldn't feel it, but if you did, you would feel it every time you crossed a ward line.

Solana would never forget the way they slithered and slipped in the dusk down the steep path into the secret valley of Rivendell, and she was reasonably sure the dwarves wouldn't either, hating elves as though they may. The air grew warmer as they got lower, and the smell of the pine-trees made the dwarves drowsy, so that every now and again one of them nodded and nearly fell off, or bumped his nose on the pony's neck, to the laughter of the others.

Their spirits rose as they went down and down. The trees changed to beech and oak, and there was a comfortable feeling in the twilight. The last green had almost faded out of the grass when they came at length to an open glade not far above the banks of the stream.

The Dwarves suddenly sat a bit straighter, as a new smell wafted in, one that Solana couldn't place.

Just as she was trying to – place it, that is – a burst of song-like laughter came out of the trees, and really large Malfoys with pointed ears were singing in a language Solana didn't know, but it seemed a jolly tune and she began to hum along with recurring tunes. When Thorin ground out "Elves," as if it hurt him, she suddenly realized that the Elves of Arda weren't anywhere close to House-Elves; these Elves were elegant and stylish, unlike House-Elves, which looked like overgrown naked mole-rats with long ears, and wore pillow-cases as if they it didn't make them look like babies. It was one of the few things Solana had found irritating about her fellow Ravenclaw, best friend, and once-upon-a-time crush Hermione Granger; her drive to liberate the ugly things.

The elves laughed and sang in the trees, and sometimes one would fall down, making the others laugh even harder, and the older dwarves smirk as if they were glad that they hurt themselves, which, knowing the elves' and dwarves' feud, might have exactly been what they were smirking at.

The elves seemed to make fun of the dwarves; pointing at their beards, and laughing; but strangely enough, they didn't do the same with Gandalf, even though he and Dumbledore could both compete for the spot of the Longest Beard on Earth and Arda together. The one time an elf tried to make fun of Solana, they got hit upside the head by another, before going back to Dwarf-mocking.

It took a few songs, sang in ridiculous tunes, but at last one, a tall young man, came out from the trees and bowed to Gandalf, to Thorin, and – to the surprise of the Dwarves and Solana, though Gandalf wasn't fazed – to Solana.

"Welcome to the valley!" the elf said.

"Thank you." said Thorin a bit gruffly; but Gandalf was already off his horse and among the elves, talking merrily with them. "You are a little out of your way," said the elf, "that is, if you are making for the only path across the water and to the house beyond. We will set you right, but you had best get on foot, until you are over the bridge. Are you going to stay a bit and sing with us, or will you go straight on? Supper is preparing over there," he said. "I can smell the Wood-fires for the cooking."

Solana couldn't even understand the elven language, but she would happily hum along with a tune if they thought her. Unfortunately for her, the dwarves were all for supper as soon as possible just then, and would not stay. And so on they all went, leading their ponies, till they were brought to a good path and so at last to the very brink of the river. It was flowing fast and noisily, and there was only a narrow bridge of stone without a parapet, as narrow as a pony could well walk on; and over that they had to go, slow and careful, one by one, each leading his pony by the bridle. The elves had brought bright lanterns to the shore, and they sang a merry song as the party went across.

"Don't dip your beard in the foam, father!" they cried to Thorin once, when he was bent almost on to his hands and knees. "It is long enough without watering it."

"Hush, hush! Good People! and good night!" said Gandalf, who came last.

"Valleys have ears, and some elves have over merry tongues. Good night!" And so at last they all came to the Last Homely House, and found its doors flung wide open.

They had arrived at last.

Oo0oO

The company stayed a fortnight in Rivendell, and they found it hard to leave. Solana would gladly have stopped there for a long, long time – even supposing a wish would have taken her right back to Hogwarts without trouble. Yet not many things happened while they stayed, and that might be the very reason Solana liked it that much. The tranquillity, the calming noise of the waterfalls, the birds that were chirping cheerfully; if she could've bought a room to stay in later, she would've.

The master of the house was an elf called Elrond. His house was just about perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.

Their clothes were mended as well as their bruises, their tempers, and their hopes. Their bags were filled with food and provisions light to carry but strong to bring them over the mountain passes. Their plans were improved with the best advice. So the time came to midsummer eve, and they were to go on again with the early sun the next morning.

Oo0oO

Two days after they had arrived, Solana was talking to Elrond on one of the balconies overlooking the water below. It was then that she asked a question that would lead to many, many other conversations.

"What is the language the elves were singing in, when we arrived?"

Elrond raised an eyebrow. "Why would you want to know that?"

Solana smiled slightly wistfully. "Back from where I came from, we have a lot of languages that are used in different parts of the world. I always liked learning them; mostly the widely-used languages like Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. But the names don't tell you anything, so I'll refrain from telling you them all."

"Oh no, by all means; I'm interested in how many languages you know."

Solana blushed slightly. "Well, I was a bit of a bookworm, and the thing I liked to learn most was languages. So I know like – eight, or nine languages. English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, French, and the dead – no longer spoken – languages of Latin and Ancient Greek." She counted them on her fingers as she spoke. "So that's nine."

"Impressive. And you wish to learn Sindarin, the language of the elves as well?"

Solana nodded. "Yes, along with Quenya and the Black Speech of Mordor, if Gandalf will teach me."

Elrond raised an eyebrow. "Why would you want to learn the Black Speech, child?"

"Well, if I'm correct, I won't be able to find my way back home for a long, long time, and I might as well learn what my enemies will be saying to each other while I'm here."

Elrond smiled slightly and nodded. "Very well. Come to me every night at seven, and I will teach you for an hour or two. You will most likely be able to convey what you want in Sindarin when you leave – which is good if you meet an elf that does not speak Westron. For now, your first lesson; Mae Govannen. It translates to Well Met, a traditional elven greeting."

"Ah. Mae Govannen, in that case."

Oo0oO

On the last night of their stay, Thorin and Gandalf confronted Elrond with their map. Solana was studying Sindarin at the time, so she missed the entire conversation.

According to Bofur, who had relayed the entire conversation to her after hearing about it from Gandalf, Elrond had discovered some moon-letters on the map; they were invisible runes, only visible when the moon shone behind them. There were even kinds that were only visible during specific times of the year, with specific kinds of moons, and those were on the parchment. Someone, a long time ago, had written them on the parchment on a midsummer's eve with a crescent moon, apparently.

The runes told them that the last light of Durin's day would shine upon the keyhole. Durin's day, Bofur explained upon further questioning, was the first day of the dwarves' New Year. The first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter, until when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together. It was good that they found out when they did; if they hadn't, they would most likely have been forced to go through the main entrance of Erebor, and would just as likely get incinerated by Smaug before they could do more than blink.

Also, the swords that were brought with them from the Troll's lair – not including Gryffindor's sword, which was strapped on Solana's side at all times, and a large, elven dagger called _Sting_ – were famous, ancient blades from the High Elves of the West, forged in a long-destroyed city called Gondolin to fight in the goblin-wars. One, _Glamdring_ – Foe-Hammer – was once worn by the king of Gondolin, and the other, _Orcrist_ – the goblin-cleaver – had slain multiple goblin kings. Elrond theorized that they were most likely pillaged from other plunderers, who had pillaged from other plunderers, and so on.

The next morning was a midsummer's morning as fair and fresh as could be; blue sky and never a cloud, and the sun dancing on the water. After a "Farewell," or, in Solana's case, "_Novaer,_" they rode away amid songs of farewell and good speed, with their hearts and bellies ready for more adventure, and with a knowledge of the road they must follow over the Misty Mountains to the land beyond. And, somehow, Solana knew she would see the Last Homely House again, either in a coffin or with her fourteenth share of the gold from the Halls of Erebor.

* * *

**Review Replies!**

**RealityInk: You are absolutely correct. What you're describing is how I wanted it to happen – possibly make two or three chapters that show the important events in between the Hobbit and the LotR – but only without a few of my ideas that I got after reading up on the elves' culture in the LotR wiki. I thank you for your idea anyways; had I not already thought upon the matter, I would certainly have found your review extremely helpful.**

**And I would like to correct you; Legolas was in the books. Both there, and in the film, did he join the fellowship.**

**HomeByTwilight: I can understand the part about men having a hard time writing female characters, being male myself. However, I find it quite easy to write them, as long as they are not the main character in a series. You forgot Bard's children, though – even though they don't have a large role, they **_**are**_** female. And I didn't know about Tauriel, but that makes her practically an OC, which is great, because that means I can build her character from the ground up.**

**Liedral: Exactly my point – and, FYI, it's the same with regular LotR fics! And it's even worse for me, because my mind registers any Fem!Bilbo called Bilbo as male, and they always pair them up with one of the dwarves! It's extremely irritating!**

**Siegfried01: I know, and those are the reasons I write this story the way it is – to balance out the slash, even though it is only a single story. Well, that, and femslash is appealing to every teenage male, and I myself am one.**

**SpikeySugarBomb: The wand is an essential part of this fic, so no, I'm afraid that the wand will stay. I did say, after all, that she kept it in its holster just in case something snapped it. Are you on crack, by the way? RainbowScaled!Smaug? Really?**

**And… I… Just – what. That was my exact plan with the souvenir. How? You ******* telepathic piece of ****** ******* **** cabbage-****** ******** mindless **** brown ******* ********* of ****.**

**6UnTalentedArtist9: Yes, I do. But why should that matter?**

**LordPeverell: …No I didn't. I checked with the book; it's exactly the same, save for the last verse, which I wrote myself.**

**OI: Thank you for pointing it out, but I'll refrain from editing it; just assume he was given it earlier, and that it goes back to Elrond somewhere during the coming chapters. That way he will receive it again in the first book.**

**To the rest of the reviewers, as always; Thank You!**


	5. Chapter 5: A Fool Of An Istari

_But now Ilúvatar sat and hearkened, and for a great while it seemed good to him, for in the music there were no flaws.  
But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself.  
To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren; and he had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame.  
For desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar.  
But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren._

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

* * *

**Chapter 5: A fool of an Istari**

There were many paths that led into the Misty Mountains, and many that passed over them. But most of the paths were cheats and deceptions and led either nowhere or to bad ends; and most of the passes were infested by evil things, like Orcs and Wargs – at least, according to Gandalf; the Wargs didn't sound that evil to Solana – and dreadful dangers, like steep drops and thin walkways that could crash down into the abyss. The party, helped by the wise advice of Elrond, the knowledge and memory of Gandalf, and Solana's _Point Me _spell, took the right road to the right pass.

Long days after they had climbed out of the valley and left the Last Homely House miles behind, they were still going up and up and up. It was a hard path and a dangerous path, a crooked way and a lonely and a long. Now they could look back over the lands they had left, laid out behind them far below. Solana could spot the Shire in the far, far distance, and suddenly wished she'd taken the time to paint or draw the inside of Bilbo's Hobbit-hole in her photo album.

It was getting bitter cold up there, and the wind came shrill among the rocks. Boulders, too, at times came galloping down the mountain-sides, let loose by midday sun upon the snow, and passed either luckily among them, or, more alarmingly, over their heads. The nights were comfortless and chill, and the dwarves did not dare to sing or talk too loud, for the echoes were uncanny, and the silence seemed to dislike being broken – except by the noise of water and the wail of wind and the crack of stone. However, Solana had an appropriate lullaby, as always, that she sung whenever they were going ever an especially dangerous part. Its words creeped the dwarves and even Gandalf out, but inexplicably, they felt like their very souls were a raging sea that calmed down after hearing the song's last words.

"_A gentle breeze from the Lonely Mountain,_

"_Softly blows over lullaby bay._

"_It fills the sails of boats that are waiting –_

"_Waiting to sail your souls away._

"_It isn't far to the Lonely Mountain,_

"_And your boat waits down by the quay._

"_The winds of night so softly are sighing –_

"_Soon they will ferry your souls to sea._

"_So close your eyes on the Lonely Mountain,_

"_Wave good-bye to the lights of day,_

"_And watch your boat from the Lonely Mountain,_

"_Ferry your souls away from lullaby bay."_

It was a creepy tune, its creepiness enhanced by the echo that sounded from below them; as if a choir of ghosts sang from Udûn, beckoning them to come to their realm.

**(A/N For those of you who don't know, Udûn is Sindarin for Hell, and Quenya for Underworld. My theory is that, just like in Christian religion, the 'bad' spirits go to Udûn (which was the main fortress of Melkor, the 'bad' Vala) and the 'good' spirits to… somewhere else. I haven't figured that part out yet. Tolkien never specified a Hell or Heaven, if you're wondering.)**

Over the course of the days in the mountains, Solana saw Gandalf grow worried, and knew herself that the safe time wouldn't last; like calm before the storm. She didn't know it at the time, but her thoughts would be proven true to the letter.

All was well for a three days, until they met a thunderstorm – more than a thunderstorm, like a thunder-battle. Solana knew how terrific a really big thunderstorm can be down in the land; especially at times when two great thunderstorms meet and clash. She had seen one of them at Hogwarts once, when everyone was allowed to go out at night by the professors and watch it. It had been majestic.

More terrible and majestic still are thunder and lightning in the mountains at night, when storms come up from East and West and make war. The lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks shiver, and great crashes split the air and go rolling and tumbling into every cave and hollow, and the darkness is filled with overwhelming noise and sudden light. The only reason that Solana had for not whipping out her photo album and the art kit she had gotten from Lord Elrond and painting it was the fact that they were high up in a narrow place, with a dreadful fall into a dim valley at one side of them.

There they were sheltering under a hanging rock for the night, huddled together, the only reason that they weren't shivering from head to toe being the fact that Solana had cast warming and impervius charms on them to keep them from catching a cold or a fever. When she looked out in the lightning-flashes, she saw that across the valley gigantic golems were out and were hurling rocks at one another for what seemed like a game, catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang. Solana remembered Gandalf talking about them; they were this world's giants. Though, why either Ilúvatar or the Valar decided to create them was beyond her.

Then came a wind and a rain, and the wind whipped the rain and the hail about in every direction, so that an overhanging rock was no protection at all. Solana didn't have the willpower needed to hold up a wall that could stand against such assault, or anything like that – sure, she could manage it for a short time, perfect for in duels, but Transfiguration was never her forte – and thus they were soon getting pelted and their ponies were standing with their heads down and their tails between their legs, and some of them were whinnying with fright. They could hear the giants guffawing and shouting all over the mountainsides.

"This won't do at all!" Thorin said suddenly. "If we don't get blown off or struck by lightning, we shall be picked up by some giant and kicked sky-high for a football."

"Well, if you know of anywhere better, take us there!" said Gandalf, who was feeling very grumpy, and was far from happy about the giants himself. It was one of the large differences Solana had noticed between Dumbledore and Gandalf; the latter could get grumpy, while Dumbledore was, at most, disappointed. She snorted at the thought, suddenly imagining Dumbledore talking down one of the Giants like they were in school and he was their teacher. "I'm very disappointed in you, Mr. Huge. And you, Mr. Enormous, I had thought better of you."

Solana snorted once more and tuned back into the argument; apparently, Fill and Kili would go to look for a better shelter. They had very sharp eyes, and being the youngest of the dwarves by some fifty years they usually got those kind of jobs. "There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something." Had Thorin said on one occasion. "You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after." So it, unfortunately, proved on this occasion.

After a few minutes of thunderstorm-gazing, Fili and Kili came crawling back, holding on to the rocks in the wind. "We have found a dry cave," Kili announced, "not far round the next corner; and ponies and all could get inside."

"Have you thoroughly explored it?" Asked Gandalf just when Solana spoke up to ask the same; they both knew that caves in mountains often housed dangerous creatures. Where do you think the Mountain Troll got its name from?

"Yes, yes!" Fili said, though everybody knew they could not have been long about it; they had come back too quick. "It isn't all that big, and it does not go far back."

That, of course, was the dangerous part about caves: it's difficult to know how far they go back sometimes, or where a passage behind may lead to, or what is waiting for you inside. But now Fili and Kili's news seemed good enough. So they all got up and prepared to move. The wind was howling and the thunder still growling, and they had a business getting themselves and their ponies along. Luckily, it wasn't very far to go, and before long they came to a big rock standing out into the path. When Solana stepped behind, she found a low arch in the side of the mountain. There was just room to get the ponies – and Bombur, for he was just as wide – through with a squeeze, when they had been unpacked and unsaddled. As they passed under the arch, it was good to hear the wind and the rain outside instead of all about them, and to feel safe from the giants and their rocks. But the Istari took no risks. They lit up their wands, and by their light they explored the cave from end to end.

It seemed quite a fair size, but not too large and mysterious. It had a dry floor and some comfortable nooks. At one end there was room for the ponies, and, within a minute of entering, they were chomping happily on pieces of hay. Solana had forgotten to cast the _Impervius _on the clothes, so she – instead of Oin and Gloin's idea of lighting a fire and drying them there, the pyromaniacs – cast drying charms on everything. They made their blankets comfortable and, in Gandalf and Thorin's case, got out their pipes and blew smoke things, which Gandalf turned into different colours and set dancing up by the roof to amuse them. Solana got out her photo album and art case and, after casting a spell on the rock in front of the entrance that made it see-through for her alone, started painting the lightning, accompanied by Gandalf and the dwarves' talking. They nodded off, one after the other, until Solana was the only one left. It took an hour, but eventually her painting was completed, a masterpiece if she said so herself, and she put her stuff away in the ponies' pack before turning in for the night.

Oo0oO

Much later, Solana was awoken by the shuffling of feet. When she turned to check, she saw that a crack had opened at the back of the cave, and was already a wide passage. She was just in time to see the last of the ponies' tails disappearing into it – with her photo album! Of course, she gave a very loud yell of rage, one that woke up the dwarves and Gandalf.

Out of the crack jumped ugly monsters Solana recognized from Gandalf's tales as goblins, big goblins, great ugly-looking goblins, lots and lots of goblins. With weapons. Shiny, pointy, sharp weapons. So, Solana did the logical thing to the goblins who had stolen her _precious_ photo album.

She opened fire before they could take more than a single step in their direction.

Now, one has to realize that 'lots and lots of goblins' are a lot of goblins. Not just a lot of goblins, a LOT of goblins. Six to each dwarf, not counting the two for her – Who did they think she was? Some meagre maiden in need of a knight to save her? – and the eight for Gandalf.

Therefore, it says quite a lot that she was able to cut down – for that's what she did, using different varieties of cutting hexes – half of them before the dwarves and Gandalf were able to stand up and join the fight.

Thirteen dwarves and two Istari against around forty goblins wasn't really a fair fight, especially when the goblins had Solana's photo album. Within a minute after entering, the goblins were slain, the hole they came through still open, and all was quiet once more. That is, until they noticed Solana wasn't with them anymore.

"That _fool_ of an Istari!" Gandalf cursed as soon as he figured it out, before following Solana down the goblin-made path, accompanied by thirteen dwarves who didn't really know what the wizard was talking about until a minute and a single turn later, when they stumbled upon a gigantic cave, with barely-supported wooden structures along the walls. Then, they suddenly understood.

A goblin city. A large one.

And Solana had charged right in.

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**Review Replies!**

**RealityInk: An excerpt from the book; **

_**More clearly than all else there shone forth in the middle of the door a single star with many rays.**_

"_**There are the emblems of Durin!" cried Gimli.**_

"_**And there is the tree of the high elves!" said **__**Legolas.**_

**I rest my case.**

**HomeByTwilight: I wanted to write the part with the trolls, but it just wouldn't come. I tried it three times but every time it was just **_**so bad**_** that I stopped and had to start over. And Hermione was, indeed, one of those annoyingly heterosexual types. I did say 'crush' instead of 'girlfriend', didn't I? But don't worry, I'll reveal the girlfriend(s) she had in a later chapter.**

**Also, about Bard's kids… The line between Tolkien-Canon and Jackson-Canon has blurred over the years since I have read the book – it's why I forgot Tauriel wasn't Tolkien-Canon. Well, that, and the book I read was in Dutch, thirty years old, and only readable because of a few strips of scotch tape.**

**Noxy the Proxy: How could it be difficult to follow when I'm writing it close to the book? I would assume that it would be easier, wouldn't it?**

**6UnTalentedArtist9: There's a lot needed to offend me, and 'a lot' isn't reviewing. 'A lot' is flaming my story, myself, my mother, my grandparents, and calling my dog a cute, fluffy puppy on top. If you do all that, **_**then**_** you offend me and I'll probably kick your digital butt in either a debate or a multiplayer game afterwards.**

**SpikeySugarBomb: …True, true. However, RainbowScaled!Smaug is a bit out there without being on crack. Remember Smaug? Big, hulky, glaring, mad Smaug? Do you think he'd be as awesome with rainbow scales?**

**Thank You to all reviewers, as always.**


	6. Chapter 6: A king under a mountain

_Some of these thoughts he now wove into his music, and straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first. Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard at first foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. But Ilúvatar sat and hearkened until it seemed that about his throne there was a raging storm, as of dark waters that made war one upon the other in an endless wrath that would not be assuaged._

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

* * *

**Chapter 6: A king under a mountain**

_With Solana_

White-hot burning rage shot through her as she shot through the small hole the goblins had come out of; _How dare they take her photo album like that!_ She knew, somewhere deep inside her mind, that it was safe – it was warded to hell and back, after all.

Luckily for Solana, the ward scheme included a permanent tracking charm. She would have gotten lost otherwise, because it was deep and dark, such as only goblins that have taken to living in the heart of the mountains would be able to see through. The passages there were crossed and tangled in all directions, but Solana, with the use of the tracking charm, knew where to go and the way went down and down, and it was horribly stuffy and disgusting, and multiple times she almost tripped over bones and skulls of various origins.

It took a long while, about ten minutes, but eventually there came a glimmer of a red light before her, and she broke into a full-out sprint.

After a second, she stumbled into a big cavern. It was lit by a great red fire in the middle, and by torches along the walls, and it was full of goblins. They all looked up astonished when Solana came running in. And all was silent for a few seconds, giving Solana time to assess the situation. The ponies were already there huddled in a corner, and all the baggage and packages was lying broken open, and being rummaged by goblins, and smelt by goblins, and fingered by goblins, and quarrelled over by goblins. Including her photo album. It wasn't being opened, but the cover was brought up to their noses, and their _fat little greasy _fingers got all over it;

That was when Solana snapped, and the goblins became the first in seven years, and the last for another sixty, to see the Sixth Istari's full power.

Now, normal wizards need wands; this is no news. Wizards of Middle-Earth, Istari, need staffs because of their huge magical reserves; these magicks, the magicks of Arda, are always more brute than the refined magic of Earth. There was another magic, one that was only used by Solana; wandless magic.

It should be known that wandless magic was not something one could throw around easily, no matter who you are and how much magic you have in your reserves. Only when extreme emotions are involved it can be used; and even then, one will get extremely tired afterwards, because of near-empty magical reserves.

Solana, in this case, was angry beyond words. Her only reminder of her old world, her parents, Hogwarts, her friends, her godsons, and her goddaughter was being dirtied by filthy goblin hands! This induced white-hot rage in her and, completely forgetting about her wand, she raised her hand, even as the goblins picked up their weapons and charged.

Had anyone watched this happening, they wouldn't have seen Solana; they would have seen the Sixth Istari of Middle Earth, _Erinqua_. Had the hypothetical spectators had any doubts that she were an Istari beforehand, they would've immediately been erased. But there were none, and _Erinqua_ stood alone against more than a hundred charging goblins.

And then, _Erinqua_ clenched her hand tightly. **"Die."**

This single word wasn´t screamed, it wasn´t yelled; it wasn't even spoken. It was whispered, and still, it reverberated within each of the goblin's heads, through their charging screams, as if it were yelled in a silent room.

It would be the last thing any of them ever heard.

_With Gandalf, Thorin, Ori, Nori, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bombur, Bofur, and Bifur_

Gandalf wasn't a worrier.

When his friends, Alatar and Pallando, left to seek help in the east and he didn't get a message for years, he didn't worry. When Thranduil said he wouldn't help in the war effort, he didn't worry. When Radagast started to live like a hermit instead of convincing the Ents, his special rabbits, or any other animal to help fight Sauron, even then he didn't worry.

No, Gandalf worried over far greater things. He worried when Sauron stood up from his throne and decided to lead an army into battle. He worried when Sauron convinced a Balrog to help him. He worried whenever Elrond was out of a certain kind of round, yellow candy that he couldn't remember the name of.

And now, he worried over the Sixth Istari, because she had run off and decided to take on the entire Goblin city on her own.

It wasn't hard to track Solana down; she didn't hide her footprints, after all. It took a little more than ten minutes in the end, and they were just turning another corner when a red light came visible at the end of the hallway, and a voice came through their minds.

"**Die."**

To Gandalf and the dwarves, it was obvious that it wasn't spoken to them, because a sickly green light came from the red light – or so it seemed – and there was the sound that reminded them of a rain of blood; they had all seen a decapitation once, and it was the same sound as when blood spurt from the wound and hit the floor. They quickly hurried over, Gandalf in front, when it was followed by a THUD of someone hitting the floor.

When they could finally see what was going on, Fili, Kili, and Ori puked, and the rest grimaced and pinched their noses closed.

All over the place lay intestines – goblin ones – and blood was splattered onto the walls, and in some places up unto the ceiling. Right in front of them lay Solana, chest slowly rising and falling as if she were asleep. On the far end, the ponies were tethered to a wall, and all their stuff lay around them, mostly broken. The instruments were fine, surprisingly enough. They glanced at each other in amazement, before picking Solana up, and throwing her over the back of her horse. Then they sought out all their items, even the broken ones, put them back in satchels on the ponies, and prepared to walk back out.

Not a word was spoken as they walked through the cave-system back the way they came. They knew that, by now, the gate they came through was closed, and they had to find another way. As per unspoken agreement, Gandalf lead the way, and the others trusted him to lead them the right way.

After a good fifteen minutes, they came upon what seemed to be the main road; it was large, wide, had hundreds of footprints on it, and led both up and down. They went upwards, of course, and came upon the same large hole as earlier; only much, much, much higher. And right in front of them, behind a small army of goblins, was a large, fat, ugly(-er than normal) goblin with a crown on its head.

"Who are these miserable persons!" The apparent goblin king thundered. "Dwarves and humans! What are you doing here? Up to no good, I'll warrant! Spying on the private business of my people, I guess! Thieves, I shouldn't be surprised to learn! Murderers and friends of Elves, not unlikely! Come! What have you got to say?"

The dwarves glanced at each other, and then at Gandalf, who nodded. They drew their weapons. "CHAAAARGE!"

To anyone sitting on their couch, watching it on their television, the battle would have looked amazing. Thirteen dwarves came rushing in from one side, hacking, slashing, and dicing up goblins left and right. Gandalf stayed back, shooting bolts of magic at any goblin who got close to hurting him, Solana, or the ponies. Orcrist flashed at the front of the company, and it quickly made its way to the goblin King in the hands of Thorin. The goblins were no match for battle-hardened dwarves, and soon all there was left was mincemeat and their king.

"What have you done?!" He roared. "I am the King under the Mountain! You cannot defeat me!"

From the back of the group, a groan sounded, followed by a female voice. "Oh shaddap, ya big lump." A thrown rock accentuated this statement, hitting the King of Mincemeat in the short and curlies.

With a groan and clutching his privates in pain, the King fell forwards –

Straight through the wooden platform, into the abyss below.

There was a stunned silence for a few seconds, as all dwarves and Gandalf were staring open-mouthed at Solana, that was broken by Gandalf.

"Follow me."

Solana had fallen asleep again while they were moving through dim passageways, and the only sound for a long while was the calm clopping of the ponies and Shadowfax, until a bit of light shone at the end of the tunnel, and the clopping sped up for everyone wanted to get into the light. However, due to the faster walking, Solana had slid off the back of her horse and fallen into a small crack in the wall.

Nobody would notice until much later.

Oo0oO

_With Solana_

When Solana opened her eyes, she wondered if she had, for it was just as dark as with them shut. No one was anywhere near her, she could hear nothing, see nothing, and could feel nothing except the cold stone of the floor.

Solana flipped out her wand and lit up the tunnel with a silent _Lumos._ The walls were rough, and she knew that if she pulled her had along the wall, it would open wounds. With no way back, sideways, down, or up, Solana chose to go forwards, and started to walk until she saw a glint on the floor, right next to where she had woken up.

When she bent down to look at it, she found a small, golden ring; it was small, and could barely fit her pinky finger. On both the outside and the inside were words written in a language she had learned to read from Gandalf since they had left Rivendell; the Black Language of Mordor. She mumbled the words softly to herself as she read them by the light of her wand.

"_**Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,  
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul."**_

Solana shrugged, not recognizing the words, and put the ring in an inner pocket of the red robes, before standing up. _The little ring doesn't seem too important, after all –_

That thought pulled her up short and she suddenly remembered the Horcrux Diary; that didn't seem too important as well. And now that she thought about it_, it isn't logical at all for a small, golden ring – almost like a wedding band – with the Black Fucking Language of Motherfuckin' Mordor inscribed on it to be lying around in a goblin tunnel!_

Then Solana realized that it wasn't smart to stand around loitering in a goblin tunnel, and she set off at a brisk pace.

The tunnel seemed to have no end. All she knew was that it was still going down pretty steadily and keeping in the same direction in spite of a twist and a turn or two. There were passages leading off to the side every now and then, as seen by the soft light her wand provided. Of these she took no notice, except to hurry past for fear of goblins or half-imagined dark things coming out of them en masse. On and on she went, and down and down; and still, all was silent except for the rustling of her robes and the occasional whirr of a bat by her ears, which startled her into shrieking and firing off a cutting curse at first, until it became too frequent to bother about.

Solana didn't know how long she kept on like this, hating to go on, not daring to stop in fear of an army of goblins, until she was tired enough that she felt like she could sleep through a whole day. After an indeterminate amount of time, the ceiling became higher and she transfigured a piece of rock into a skateboard; with the use of smoothing charms on the floor in front of her, Solana made a _lot_ more ground than she otherwise would've.

Skateboarding was something she had learned back when she stayed with the Dursleys; one of her 'secret friends', which were friends the Dursleys didn't know about due to lack of interacting at school, had taught her when the friend had brought her own skateboard to a park on the other side of Little Whining. After a few afternoons filled with falling, Solana had gotten it down and learned to transfigure her own skateboard as soon as she got to Hogwarts.

The tunnel seemed like it led all the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond. Suddenly and without any warning, the front of the skateboard dipped down and Solana fell face-first into icy cold water with an "Eep!".

It shocked her, that there was water there. She did not know whether it was just a pool in the path, or the edge of an underground stream that crossed the passage, or the brink of a deep dark subterranean lake. After she stood up, she stopped and she could hear, when she held her breath, small water drops drip-drip-dripping from an unseen roof into the water below; but there seemed no other sort of sound. So it was a lake.

Suddenly, a hiss sounded from behind her. "Bless us and splash us, my precioussss! I guess it's a choice feast; at least –"

But that was as far as the hiss got because Solana "Eep!"–ed again when she heard his plan and fired off a blasting curse over her shoulder.

The last Gollum ever saw was a bright light before his head exploded – rather spectacularly, if you asked some of the fish that were watching.

* * *

**Review Replies!**

**Anime Princess: Of course they did. They took **_**all**_** of their stuff, remember? **

**Noxy the Proxy: I would've thought it that it would be easier to follow, but whatever floats your goat man.**

**SpikeySugarBomb: It isn't that I find the idea of a dragon with multi-coloured scales weird, it's weird **_**on Smaug**_**. If it had fit my storyline, I could've easily fabricated a new dragon and made his scales multi-coloured.**

**As for the goblins, they came out of a thin passageway, and Solana was extremely angry because they took her photo album – the only reminder of her old world, her parents, her friends, and her godson and –daughters – and that put more power behind her spells.**

**Skendo: Exactly! And thank you for your compliment.**

**The rest of the reviewers get a Thank You, as always.**


	7. Chapter 7: Escape

_Then Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that he smiled; and he lifted up his left hand, and a new theme began amid the storm, like and yet unlike to the former theme, and it gathered power and had new beauty.  
But the discord of Melkor rose in uproar and contended with it, and there was again a war of sound more violent than before, until many of the Ainur were dismayed and played no longer, and Melkor had the mastery.  
Then again Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that his countenance was stern; and he lifted up his right hand; and behold, a third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others.  
For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies, but it could not be quenched, and it grew, and it took to itself power and profundity.  
And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. _

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

* * *

**Chapter 7: Escape**

Solana was breathing hard as she ran down a small passage. Any goblins that were in the area had to have heard that explosion, and the rockslide that came after the Reducto.

The passage was low and roughly made – for a human at least. For any Hobbit or goblin it was easily accessible. Soon the passage that had been sloping down began to go up again, and after a while it climbed steeply. That slowed her down, despite her magic. But at last the slope stopped, and the passage turned a corner. It dipped down again, and there, at the bottom of a short incline, Solana saw, filtering round another corner – A glimpse of light! Not red light, as of fire or lantern, but a pale out-of-doors sort of light.

She didn't run immediately; first, she cast a few spells to keep herself from being detected because if there was one thing the war had taught her, it was that exits were heavily guarded. After hiding her scent, the sound of her robes, footsteps, breathing, and heart – who knew how good those goblins could hear? – Solana cloaked herself to invisibility with a mental command and set off.

It was interesting how the Invisibility Cloak and the Resurrection Stone worked. After the Final Battle, the Hallows had disappeared, and nobody had ever heard anything about them anymore – except Solana. They were accidently re-discovered by her when she almost got caught by someone else in a stealth mission. Solana wished she was invisible because she was going to fail a mission for the first time if she didn't. A second later, the Muggle peeked in, shone his lantern around, and closed the door again after apparently seeing nothing.

The Resurrection Stone… Solana hadn't yet figured out what use it was. Sure, she could call up her parent's spirits, and Sirius', and everyone else who died, but they got hurt while they were in the real world, and it made her want to commit suicide.

She hadn't used it past that first time.

Back with Solana, she was running as fast as her legs would carry her as she turned the last corner. She suddenly came right into an open space, where the light, after all that time in the dark, seemed dazzlingly bright. Really it was only a leak of sunshine in through a doorway, where a great door, a stone door, was left standing open.

Solana blinked, and then suddenly she saw the goblins: goblins in full armour with drawn swords sitting just inside the door, watching it with watchful eyes, and watching the passage that led to it. They were aroused, alert, ready for anything.

She crept to the door, careful to avoid touching any of the goblins. Now that she had ran such a long while, she couldn't use too much magic in fear of blacking out again and waking up being roasted over an open fire. Solana was almost at the door, and could already see outside into the open air: there were a few steps running down into a narrow valley between tall mountains; the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone bright on the outside of the door. She was shimmying through, careful not to move the door, when –

One of the goblins inside shouted: "There is a shadow by the door. Something is outside!"

Solana's heart jumped into her mouth. She had completely forgotten her shadow! Pushing against the door to make it open wider, she ran away, leaping down the steps like a goat, while bewildered goblins were staring at the spot her shadow was at seconds earlier.

Of course they soon came down after her, hooting and hallooing, and hunting among the trees, seeking to avenge their king. But they, and goblins in general, didn't like the sun: it made their legs wobble and their heads giddy – like a lesser form of the curse on Trolls that turns them to stone.

They could not find Solana with all of her spells on her, slipping in and out of the shadow of the trees, running quick and quiet, and keeping out of the sun; so soon they went back grumbling and cursing to guard the door.

She had escaped.

Oo0oO

And, as was often in those situations, Solana didn't know where she was. She wandered on and on, until the sun began to sink westwards – behind the mountains. Their shadows fell across Solana's path, and she looked back, perplexed. Then she looked back forward and could only see ridges and slopes falling towards lowlands and plains, glimpsed occasionally between the trees.

"What the hell?!" Solana exclaimed, then clamped her mouth shut in fear of predators. Sure, she still had her disguising charms on, but she didn't want any man-eating animals around her, whether they could sense her or not.

_Where are those dwarves?!_ Solana thought to herself. _And Gandalf?! I know they escaped the goblins, Gandalf would have killed any that came too close. But where are they, if they did get to this side of the mountains?_

She wandered on, out of the little valley, over its edge, and down the slopes beyond. Solana had just come to the conclusion that she had to travel to Erebor herself and meet up with them there – a Point Me, Erebor had to be just as accurate as the map – when she heard voices. She stopped and listened.

It didn't sound like goblins, so she walked forward, down a stony path winding downwards with a rocky wall on her left, and a steep drop to the side. There were dells below the level of the path overhung with bushes and low trees; in one of these dells, under the bushes, people were talking.

Solana walked nearer, and suddenly she spotted an ugly head with a red hood; Balin! She could've clapped and shouted in joy, but didn't. There was nothing accomplished by that, and this gave her time to hear what the others thought of her.

Gandalf was discussing something with the dwarves, and the liberated ponies stood a little ways away. Solana could spot the edge of her photo album peeking out of one of the bags, and smiled widely. They were talking about all that had happened to them in the tunnels, and wondering and debating what they were to do next. Thorin was grumbling, and the rest – well, save Bombur, who didn't talk, and Balin, because it hurt everyone's ears every time he did, but they were nodding along – was saying that they could not possibly go further and leave her behind in the hands of the goblins, alive or not.

It warmed Solana's heart to realize that these dwarves, even though they only knew her for a few weeks, were prepared to go back into goblin tunnels to rescue her – or at least bring her body back to be buried. Thorin she didn't care about, the asshole could go fuck himself for all Solana cared.

Gandalf was arguing with Thorin. "Why did you leave her behind? You were standing right next to her when Dori accidently dropped her!"

"How can you ask! Goblins fighting and biting in the dark, everybody falling over bodies and hitting one another! You nearly chopped off my head with Glamdring, Fili was stabbing here there and everywhere with that dagger – Thing or something – and I was chopping up goblins with Orcrist! All of a sudden you gave one of your blinding flashes, and we saw the goblins running back yelping. You shouted "Follow me everybody!" and everybody ought to have followed. We thought everybody had. There was no time to count, as you know quite well, Gandalf, until we had dashed through the gate-guards, out of the lower door, and down here. And here we are – without the burglar!"

Solana had never seen the Dwarven king argue like that before, and it was quite the funny sight, Thorin staring up and Gandalf like he was a pest. She giggled from her place a few steps next to Bombur, and took off her charms when they started looking around for a fairy.

"Here I am, Thorin! I'm glad you missed me so much." Solana giggled again at his surprised red face and the shouts of glee from the other dwarves before turning to the closest dwarf – Fili. "Thank you for caring enough to be prepared to go back, everyone." She said, gave the little dwarf a small kiss on the cheek in thanks, and went to stand next to Gandalf, fully aware about the heavily blushing Fili she left behind.

Of course, the dwarves asked about her adventure, and they were impressed about her spells, remarking things like "I wish we'd had that exploding one back when we were hollowing out the Iron Hills!" and "Ooh, if only we had those back when the Orcs invaded Moria…" which in turn sparked questions about Dwarven history from Solana. After she was told about the kingdom of Moria, about the Halls of Erebor at the height of its prosperity, about the way Dwarves came to Arda, and about the individual Vala – she was especially intrigued by Vairë and her husband, Mandos – it was already nearly dusk, and Gandalf announced that they had to move on, lest they be captured by goblins once more.

They saddled up their ponies, and started riding on and on, while Solana nibbled on a piece of bread and rabbit. The rough path disappeared. The bushes and the long grasses between the boulders vanished, and they found themselves at the top of a wide steep slope of fallen stones, the remains of a landslide. Solana hardened the path temporarily, and the ponies and horses clopped down the slope calmly.

However, when they reached the bottom and Solana removed the spell, small pebbles began rolling down. Soon, larger bits of split stone went clattering down and started other pieces below them slithering and rolling; then lumps of rocks were disturbed and bounded off, crashing down with a dust and a noise. Before long the whole slope above them seemed on the move, and the horses and ponies were spurred on the run away with the company on their backs, huddled on the saddles.

It was the treeline that saved them from the onslaught of stones and rocks. The animals galloped into the edge of a climbing wood of pines that stood right up the mountain slope from the deeper darker forests of the valleys below. The branches and trunks brought protection, and soon the danger was over, the slide had stopped, and the last faint crashes could be heard as the largest of the disturbed stones went bounding and spinning among the bracken and the pine-roots far below.

"Well! That has got us on a bit," said Gandalf brightly, as if they hadn't just almost died from being crushed in an avalanche. "And even goblins tracking us will have a job to come down here quietly."

"I daresay," grumbled Thorin, "But they won't find it difficult to send stones bouncing down on our heads." The dwarves – and Solana – were feeling far from happy, and were rubbing their bruised and damaged legs and feet.

"Nonsense! We are going to turn aside here out of the path of the slide. We must be quick! Look at the light!" The sun had just gone behind the mountains. The horses and ponies galloped along now as fast as they were able down the gentle slopes of a pine forest in a slanting path leading steadily southwards. At times they were pushing through a sea of bracken with tall fronds rising right above the dwarves' heads, and Solana went in front to cut them all down; at times they were marching along quietly over a floor of pine-needles; and all the while the forest-gloom slowly got heavier and the silence of the forest deeper. There was no wind that evening to bring even a sea-sighing into the branches of the trees.

"Must we go any further?" asked Kili, when it was so dark that Solana could only just see Bombur's beard wagging beside her, and quiet enough that she could hear the dwarves' breathing like a loud noise. "My backside feels like it's about to fall apart, my back aches, and my hands feel like someone's just put them in molten gold."

"A bit further," Gandalf said to the other's chagrin.

Indeed, after but a few seconds they suddenly came to an opening where no trees grew. The moon was up and was shining into the clearing. Somehow it struck all of them as not at all a nice place, although there was nothing wrong to see.

They tethered the horses and ponies to a tree, and sat down in a circle to discuss what they were going to do in the morning.

Instead of joining them, however, Solana started expanding her pockets, and loaded her photo album and the art case she got form Lord Elrond in there; it wouldn't do to have another episode like with the goblins and lose any of them for real. She put food in as well; a whole bread, a few freshly-plucked apples, a large handful of blackberries, and she was just standing up to tell Gandalf that she was going to go hunt a few rabbits when all of a sudden they heard a howl away downhill, a long shuddering howl. Solana recognized it from Gandalf's imitations when she asked about the most dangerous creatures on Middle-Earth that they might meet.

Wargs. And everyone knew, where Wargs went, Orks followed.

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**Skendo: Really? I always found both Gollum and Sméagol extremely nasty… **

**DragonMistressOfRedemption888: That's true, but he didn't specify what the heaven and hell was. What is known, though, is that he didn't want to bring his religion into his books. And that is why he didn't make a heaven or hell.**

**Thank You to the other reviewers, again.**


	8. Chapter 8: An interesting conversation

_One was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came.  
The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes.  
And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern._

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

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**Chapter 8: An interesting conversation**

The single, long howl was answered by another, far to the right and quite a bit nearer to them, and then by another not far away to the left. Solana knew that had she been back on Earth, it would have been wolves howling at the moon, gathering together, and she wouldn't have had any reason to worry. However, this was Middle-Earth. And these weren't wolves. They were Wargs.

She was understandably quite worried, and, after flicking her wand a few times to collect their stuff, immediately obeyed Gandalf's command to go "Up the trees, quick!".

The company ran to the trees at the edge of the glade, hunting for those that had branches fairly low, or were slender enough to swarm up. Solana, being extremely tall according to Dwarfish standards, was up and sitting in the first tree she met – a bonsai tree. Instead of leaving her companions to their fates, she whipped out her wand and started casting levitation spells on disgruntled dwarves to get them up into the canopy above them. She knew that most of them would have been angry, had it not been a life-or-death situation.

Solana chuckled softly from her tree. The dwarves sitting up in the trees with their beards dangling down, like old gentlemen gone cracked and playing at being boys. Most of them were in trees they themselves could not climb; Fili and Kili were at the top of a tall weeping willow, peeking out from between its long leaves; Dori, Nori, and Ori were sitting in some kind of pine, with Oin and Gloin frowning down at the ground in an adjacent one; Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur were in an ash tree, and Thorin was sitting comfortably in a large oak that stood next to the ash; Dwalin and Balin, the only ones who had gone up a tree without her assistance, had swarmed up a tall slender fir with few branches and were trying to find a place to sit in the greenery of the topmost boughs; and Gandalf had climbed up a large pine standing at the very edge of the glade. He was quite hidden in its boughs, but you could see his eyes gleaming in the moon as he peeped out.

Solana had just enough time to snap off a couple of spells to hide herself – the same combination she used with the goblins, only a stronger smell-masking spell – before wolves ran into the glade. The pack was led by a Warg, which had to have been one of the ones that had howled.

The glade in the ring of trees was evidently a meeting-place of the wolves and Wargs, as more and more kept coming in. The first pack had apparently smelt the dwarves and Gandalf, for every tree that had a dwarf or Istari in it was soon guarded by a few wolves. Every tree except Solana's, and she was glad that she had been quick enough with her hiding spells.

The wolves and Wargs all went and sat in a great circle in the glade; and in the middle of the circle was a great grey wolf. It spoke, which sounded to Solana like nails on a blackboard, mixed with a sound that sounded remarkably like a hurt dog. By the widening of Gandalf's eyes, he understood it; Solana did not, however, and placed a silencing charm around her tree, cutting off the horrible sound.

After around ten minutes of much-needed rest, made comfortable by a cushioning charm, Solana saw something blue fly out from Gandalf's tree – and set a wolf alight! Hurriedly, she cancelled her silencing charm and looked at Gandalf to see what the old wizard was doing.

He was gathering the huge pinecones from the branches of his tree, apparently. Then he set one alight with bright blue fire, reminiscent of bluebell flames, and threw it whizzing down among the circle of the wolves. The one Solana saw being thrown struck one on the back, and immediately its shaggy coat caught fire, and it started leaping around, setting other wolves alight, yelping horribly. Then another came and another, one in blue flames, one in red, another in green. They burst on the ground in the middle of the circle and went off in coloured sparks and smoke. An especially large one hit the chief wolf on the nose, and he leaped in the air ten feet, and then rushed round and round the circle biting and snapping even at the other wolves in his anger and fright.

Solana decided she had done enough watching and conjured some fireballs – not the small things Gandalf was creating, genuine fireballs a few feet wide. They exploded upon impact, creating craters and spreading wolf- and Warg-parts around like confetti. After a mere ten fireballs, there weren't any wolves left alive.

Oo0oO

The Lord of the Eagles was a well-respected lord, even though he did not have much to lord over. But Eagles did not need much. They had their nests, up in the Misty Mountains, and their food, down in the woods around the Misty Mountains. However, all Eagles loathed goblins with a passion, even though they did not go out to actively look for them. Whenever they saw goblins, they attacked.

"What's all this uproar in the forest tonight?" The Lord of the Eagles frowned as well as eagles could frown. He was sitting, black in the moonlight, on the top of a lonely pinnacle of rock at the eastern edge of the mountains. "I hear wolves' voices! Are the goblins at mischief in the woods? Or is it Radagast, having a bit of fun?"

The Lord swept up into the air, and immediately two of his guards from the rocks at either hand leaped up to follow him. It wasn't necessary; the Lord didn't even enlist the bodyguards as a post. They were volunteers, spending their free time protecting their lord. It was a testament of how well he was liked that no Eagle ever spent more than a week guarding him a year; every week, the guard was refreshed, and two others stepped up to take the post. It took more than a year to use all of the volunteers a week long.

The three Eagles circled up in the sky and looked down upon the ring of the Wargs and wolves, a tiny spot far, far below. But Eagles have keen eyes and can see small things at a great distance. The Lord of the Eagles of the Misty Mountains had eyes that could look at the sun unblinking, and could see a rabbit moving on the ground a mile below even in the moonlight. So though he could not see the people in the trees, due to the canopy providing protection, he could make out the commotion among the wolves and see the tiny flashes of fire, and hear the howling and yelping come up faint from far beneath him. And he could also see the sudden flashes, ten in total, followed by complete calmness, and the silence that came along with it.

Also the Lord could see the glint of the moon on goblin spears and helmets, as long lines of the wicked folk crept down the hillsides from their gate and wound into the wood. Tonight the Lord of the Eagles was filled with curiosity to know what was afoot; so he summoned many other Eagles to him, and they flew away from the mountains, not to kill the goblins like they would have at any other time; no, to investigate the clearing, and if a few goblins got in the way? Well, that was their problem.

The Eagles slowly circling ever round and round they came down towards the ring of the wolves and Wargs and the meeting-place of the goblins. There weren't many wolves left; the only Warg was a great grey one, and the wolves left over were some wolves running around some random trees – at least, they seemed random, until the Lord spotted a pointed hat peeking out of one of the trees.

"It's Gandalf!" He announced to the other eagles, and soon the goblins, who were running up to set fire to the trees Gandalf and the dwarves were in, immediately had a barrage of sharp beaks and claws raining down upon them. A few slipped through, though, and it was enough; they set fire to the dry flora – it had not rained in several weeks, after all – and Eagles were soon swooping down to pick up a wizard and his Dwarven companions.

The Lord of the Eagles watched as his second-in-command scooped Gandalf up in his talons and turned back to the battlefield below, which was littered with bloody bodies of goblins and a mere two Eagles. There were no wolves, strangely enough, only the great grey Warg. The Lord was sure he had heard cries of wolves, though.

Far below him, the goblins and the wolves that were previously guarding the dwarves' and Gandalf's trees were scattering far and wide in the woods. A few eagles were still circling and sweeping above the battle-ground, picking off stray goblins that went out into the open.

However, when the Lord was turning around to follow the other Eagles, deeming staying unnecessary, something caught his attention; an Eagle bursting through the canopy. And nobody could say that wasn't strange, because Eagles do not go below the canopy of the forest. Ever. Even weirder was the fact that the Eagle was a female, but female Eagles never left the nest in the Misty Mountains.

Needless to say, the Lord of the Eagles decided to investigate.

The Lord took off after the female when he saw she put on a burst of extra speed to catch up to the other eagles. The female seemed to be flying a bit awkwardly – as if she hadn't flown in a long time. But that was ridiculous.

"Hello." The Lord greeted the female eagle when he finally flew even with her.

"Hello." The female answered back, flapping her wings again. The Lord was surprised that she didn't say 'Hello, my lord' or something similar; not that it bothered him, he preferred it, actually, but the general populace of Eagles insisted upon acting against his wishes in codes of conduct, being much more formal than he preferred.

"You did a good job disguising yourself as a male."

The female seemed startled and frowned at him. "Why would I want to do that?"

Now it was The Lord's turn to frown. How could she have been allowed to come along with the other soldiers if she hadn't even disguised herself? "Well, because females aren't allowed into the fight, perhaps?"

The female laughed, which sounded like screeching, coming from an eagle. "Oh, I'm afraid there's been a mistake. Watch." She flapped her wings a few times, flying up higher, and to the Lord of the Eagles' astonishment, transformed into a human right in front of him!

Naturally, as humans are unable to fly, she dropped down a few feet before transforming back into an Eagle. "I'm an animagus," The human-who-was-an-eagle-but-not-really explained, though it did not explain much to a confused Lord. "A shape-shifter."

"Ah, like Beorn. I take it you came with Gandalf's party, then?"

The shape-shifter chuckled, though the Lord could see something burning in her eyes, but it was gone before he could inspect any further. "Yes, though I would call it Thorin's party in the presence of the dwarves. He's a king, you see, and thinks quite highly of himself."

The Lord chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind. What is your name?"

The female's cheeks tinged red. "Oh, I'm sorry, I completely forgot to introduce myself! I'm Solana, Solana Potter. It's nice to meet you."

"It is nice to meet you as well. Your name sounds…"

"Weird? Yes, I've been getting that a lot. I'm not from around here. Much like this Beorn, I presume, though I have not met the man himself."

"Interesting. Well, I had a good time talking to you, Miss Potter. I rarely have any good conversations."

Miss Potter frowned. "Why?"

The Lord chuckled. "Because I'm the Lord of the Eagles of the Misty Mountains, of course, and anyone I rule over is much too formal for my tastes. Good day."

And then he sped up to talk to Gandalf, leaving an astonished Solana behind.

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**Review Replies!**

**Chaosrin: I haven't planned that far ahead yet. Currently, the only guidelines I am using are A. Follow the book and not the movie, and B. Have a Solana/Tauriel romance. There is a third, but I'm not going to tell you that, because that would ruin the surprise. For the rest, I'm just writing whatever I think of as I go along.**

**Bigs-Post: Oh, I'm definitely not abandoning the story! I love writing this. **

**Mii Yes Me: That's actually a really good idea. I might show a few flashbacks if there are events that can be linked – like Smaug and the 1****st**** task of the TriWiz – but I won't throw in a random chapter showing something from the other world.**

**And a thank you to the other reviewer, a Guest.**

**COME ON, PEOPLE! REVIEW SOME MORE! THE AMOUNG OF REVIEWS IS PATHETIC!**


	9. Chapter 9: Past the Misty Mountains

**A/N I feel the need to explain this here, as it is a general problem, even though it has appeared in reviews and should really belong under Review Replies. Apparently, I had the eighth chapter already written before my break from FF, but I forgot to post it. Therefore, this is actually the first new chapter after the break. I decided to post this later, instead of on the same day as the eighth chapter, so that's why most if not all of you will probably have received a message that the ninth chapter was up already yesterday. I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience. **

**A large chapter, as an apology. Hope you like it.**

* * *

**Chapter 9: Past the Misty Mountains**

I advise those of you that haven't done it yet to read the author's note above. It could help clear up some things.

After the Lord's sudden departure, it took another half of an hour to get to the Eagle's eyrie. The Dwarven Lords were deposited in some sort of huge cave, while Gandalf and Thorin were taken with the Lord of the Eagle's entourage to what Solana guessed was the throne room. Faced with the choice of staying with twelve grumpy dwarves ready to puke and going to the throne room with Thorin and Gandalf and possibly get thrown in whatever prison the Eagles had for trespassing, Solana did the logical thing.

She went to the throne room.

It took only five minutes of flying to get to where Gandalf and Thorin were taken, though Solana had to amend her earlier statement; the 'throne room' looked much more like a gigantic stone shelf with absolutely no way down than a large hall with a throne – Solana guessed the Lord of the Eagles was much more comfortable this way. The Eagle certainly seemed like he liked informality, if their earlier conversation was anything to go by.

The Eagles posted as guards let her pass, surprisingly enough (in reality, the Lord of the Eagles had known that Solana would come, and told the guards to let her Eagle form, which had a distinctive white spot above her left eye, pass) and Solana landed right next to Thorin, who jumped two feet in the air when a gigantic eagle landed next to him. Gandalf wasn't surprised in the least.

With a "Hello!" in the language of the Eagles in greeting, Solana turned back to human, surprising Thorin once more.

The King under the Mountain frowned at her rather angrily, but refrained from saying anything. Solana chirped, "What were you talking about?"

Gandalf chuckled. "We were talking about where we were going next. I wanted to go to Beorn next," Solana perked up at the familiar name, "and was hoping that the Eagles might drop us off near his house."

"Yes," The Lord of the Eagles interrupted, "But you forget; if we go anywhere near any human settlement – and this includes Beorn – we will get shot down by those bows of theirs, thinking that we were after the sheep. That might be true other times, but certainly not now. We will take you to the edge of Beorn's forest, but no further. You might have healed me from a near-fatal wound," Solana and Thorin shot a surprised look at Gandalf, "but even that isn't worth those I rule over dying. Nothing is."

"But that is more than a days' walk to Beorn's house!" Gandalf protested – another difference between him and Dumbledore, Solana noted. Dumbledore had never needed to protest against anyone, because even in the ICW, his word could be considered law, and there wasn't anyone in a higher station than he – well, except for the English monarch, who was the appointed Queen of Magic during the Blood Wars, but she almost never had anything to do with the Magical World. However, here in Arda, there were many a high figure that Gandalf was considered lower than or an equal of. Then, Gandalf sighed. "Fine, I suppose that that will have to do. Take us the furthest you want. We are already deeply obliged to your kind."

The Lord nodded. "Very well." He screeched out orders to his two guards, who nodded and flew off. Then the gigantic Eagle turned to Solana. "I do not know if you have thought about this, but perhaps Beorn came from your homeland." Solana's eyes widened, and a spark of hope entered her eyes, before it snuffed out. The chance that another Animagus got transported by the weird voices was tinier than the chance of winning the lottery while in a plane just as it crashed into a three-way crash with a zeppelin and a dragon.

She shook her head. "No, the chances of that are non-existent. My method of coming here was… unique, to say the least. Nevertheless, I will ask him. Thank you for the idea."

If the Eagle had had lips, they would have twitched. It was remarkably nice to have a conversation without 'Lord,' 'Milord,' or 'My Lord' thrown in every other word, together with lavish praises that he really didn't want. "Yes, that would be a good idea." He replied just as the other Eagles came back, green-faced dwarves in their claws.

"But for now," Thorin interrupted their conversation, "I am quite famished – and I'm sure that everyone else is as well. Do you, perchance, have food for us?" Even the usually pompous Thorin seemed to realize that being nice every once in a while was advisable, especially when your host could throw you off of a mountain without repercussion.

The Lord of the Eagles chuckled. "Sure. Solana, if you could make a fire, then I will give you your first lesson of hunting like an Eagle." As the Dwarves that hadn't seen Solana's Eagle form yet all looked on curiously, Solana grinned widely, and with a few flicks of her wand, a large fire was cackling in the middle of the shelf of rocks. Then, before their astonished eyes, she transformed into a majestic fiery-red Eagle with a slight white spot above her still violet eyes, and flew off with the Lord of the Eagles and his large entourage of hunters.

Oo0oO

It was quite some time later that Solana and the Eagles returned to what the former learned was called 'the Shelf', rabbits, hares, and sheep clutched in their claws. Solana herself had scored a wandering cow, which was bound to provide food for the coming weeks.

Still chuckling at the Lord of the Eagle's misfortune – the unfortunate Eagle had picked a sheep that packed a surprisingly hard kick, as evidenced by the blue bruise showing through the Lord's face-feathers – Solana dropped the cow right next to the fire, which was still going strong, and transformed back into a human. After a few seconds of staring proudly at her catch, she turned to the Lord of the Eagles.

"Thank you so much for letting me come with you, milord." Solana bowed rather teasingly to the frowning Eagle, chuckling as the Lord let out a huff.

"And to think that just a minute ago, you were laughing at me. So disrespectful." Then, the Lord of the Eagles turned to the large feast of meat spread across the Shelf, and to the Dwarves and Gandalf, who were watching their byplay with interest. "Well, what are you waiting for?" The Eagle spread his wings grandly. "Eat!"

The Dwarves let out a roar of approval and started skinning, hacking, slicing, and dicing up the fresh meat with their weapons to make their own meals in stone bowls Solana had conjured. The bowls were placed onto the fire, where they cooked quickly due to the extra-hot magical fire, and a mere ten minutes after Solana and the Eagles returned, everyone was happily eating sheep, cow, rabbit, and hare, for the moment uncaring about the large task that came nearer and nearer with every day that passed.

Oo0oO

The next morning, the dwarves were, for the sake of their stomachs, allowed to climb upon the Eagle's backs and cling between their wings. They cried out farewells and promises to repay the Eagles if they ever could, while Gandalf, from his place astride Solana herself, simply waved. Solana, for her part, squawked out another thanks and a promise to return after they were done with their journey.

After a while, the Eagles had to have spotted what they were making for – Solana didn't know herself, she simply followed the other Eagles – for they began to go down circling round in great spirals, and Solana did the same. They did this for a long while, until Solana started to look around the ground just to have something to do and not fall out of the air out of boredom.

The earth was much nearer than before, and below them were trees that looked like oaks and elms, and wide grass lands, with a river running through it all. But cropping out of the ground, right in the path of the stream which looped itself about it, was a great rock, almost a hill of stone, like a last outpost of the distant mountains, or a huge piece cast miles into the plain by some giant among giants. The Eagles all swooped down and dropped off their passengers one by one, until only Solana and Gandalf remained in the air. Then, Solana swooped down and settled herself on the rock as well, waiting patiently until Gandalf climbed off before she transformed back.

"Farewell!" the Eagles all cried, "wherever you fare, till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" Such was the polite thing to say amongst Eagles.

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply from earlier visits, and Solana, who had learned it the night before.

And thus, they parted, and though the Lord of the Eagles and his fifteen chieftains would fly back with a golden crown and golden chains respectively, gifted to them by the Dwarves, Solana wouldn't see the Eagles for a long, long time, save for from far away during the Battle of the Five Armies – but that was a story for another time.

An old path led down from the rock to the ground, where the path continued over a ford and onto a grassland, until Gandalf led them down to a cave a little ways off where they would discuss what would be done next.

Gandalf frowned as he looked at the fourteen before him. "I meant to see you all safe over the mountains, and now by good management and luck I have done it. We are now a great deal further east than I had intended to come with you, for after all, this is not my adventure. I will look in on it again before it is over, I promise you all that, but in the meantime I have some pressing business to attend to."

The Dwarves all groaned and looked distressed, while Solana frowned a bit. They had begun to think that Gandalf would be with them all the way, there to help them out with any difficulties. That, and Solana hadn't gotten to ask what that ring that she found in the Goblin halls was – or what it read in full. The parts that she understood weren't nearly enough to read the entire text and find out what was going on.

Meanwhile, Gandalf continued, "I am not going to leave you this very instant, though I can only give you a day or two more. I can most probably help you out with your present plight, and I need a little help myself. Due to the Eagles picking us up, we have no ponies, no supplies, and no food –"

"Actually," Solana cut Gandalf off, "We do have supplies and food. Here." Solana opened her bag, which nobody had spotted until now, and brought out a large score of other, familiar packs that could never have fit in there; their ponies' rucksacks. "I swiped these off of the ponies' corpses – they were killed by the wolves, if you must know, though Gandalf's horse escaped; I imagine it to be halfway to Rivendell by now – before I took after you guys. And I still have what's left of the cow in here as well."

With grateful nods, the dwarves accepted the packs and swung them over their shoulders, before turning back to Gandalf. "Alright, as I was saying; we have no ponies, and you do not know where you are. Well, I can tell you that last bit; you are still some miles north of the path that you should have been following if we hadn't left the mountain pass in a hurry. Very few people live in these parts, unless they have come down here since I last was here, which was some years ago. He made the steps we just went down on, in fact. He does not come here often, though, and certainly not in the daytime, and as such, it is no good waiting for him – that would be extremely dangerous, even. We must go and find him, and if all goes well at our meeting, I think I shall be off and wish you farewell for the coming months."

To Solana's great amusement, the younger dwarves and even some of the older ones started begging Gandalf not to leave them, offering dragon-gold, silver, and jewels, but he would not change his mind. "We shall see," Gandalf said after a minute of begging, "We shall see. And I think I have earned some of that gold already, have I not?"

The dwarves relented after that, and the twelve lords and their king went outside to the river to go bathe en-masse, while Gandalf stayed behind, seated next to Solana while they blew smoke rings. Eventually, Solana dug her hand in her pocket.

"Gandalf?" She asked, and got a questioning hum in reply. "When I got separated from you guys, I found something on the floor. Thing is, it has the Black Language engraved upon it." Solana took the little gold ring, and handed it to Gandalf. "What is–"

She was cut off by Gandalf, who let both the ring and his pipe clatter to the floor in shock, staring with wide eyes at the ground, where the ring laid. Then, he picked the fallen items back up again and turned to Solana, handing the ring back to her.

"This," Gandalf whispered urgently, pointing at the ring sitting innocently in Solana's hand, "is Sauron's ring – the One Ring." Solana's eyes widened, and her mouth went slightly open in surprise. "Do _not_, _ever_ show this to _anyone_! Your life and many, many others are at stake! Keep this on your person at all times, understand?!" Solana nodded quickly, conjuring up a chain around the ring and binding it around her neck, before waving her wand a few more times to set up wards on the chain.

"Good." Then, as if nothing had happened – though Solana could still spot the unease and the calculation taking place behind the aged wizard's eyes – Gandalf turned back to his pipe and started blowing perfect smoke triangles.

Solana shook her head in disbelief at how casual Gandalf could act. She certainly couldn't after that revelation.

Oo0oO

A few hours later, the Dwarves had returned from their bath and the fifteen travellers were making their way to Beorn's house. "Beorn is a very great person," Gandalf was telling them, "And you must all be very polite when I introduce you – he gets angry easily, and when he is angry…" Gandalf trailed off for a moment, "Let us just say that you should not anger him, though he is kind enough if humoured. Still, I warn you, he gets angry easily."

The Dwarves all started muttering anxiously – except Thorin, of course, who didn't let any emotions show. Solana merely frowned as the dwarves started asking doubtful questions – "Is that the person you're taking us to now?" "Couldn't you find someone more easy-tempered?" and so on – and decided to meet Beorn first before getting any pre-drawn conclusions in her head.

"Enough!" The wizard roared eventually, when he got fed up with the questions. "If you must know more beside his name, know that he is very strong, and he is a skin-changer."

Solana knew that that was Arda's word for Animagi, but Kili apparently didn't. "What! A furrier, a man that calls rabbits conies, when he doesn't turn their skins into squirrels?"

"Good gracious _**PATRON VALA**_, no, no, NO, NO!" said Gandalf immediately, over everyone else's chuckles. "Don't be a fool, Mr. Kili, if you can help it; and in the name of all wonder don't mention the word furrier again as long as you are within a hundred miles of his house, nor rug, cape, tippet, muff, nor any other such unfortunate word! He is a skin-changer. He changes his skin: sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. I am not at the liberty to tell you much more, though that ought to be enough. Some say that he is a bear descended from the great and ancient bears of the mountains that lived there before the giants came. Others say that he is a man descended from the first men who lived before Smaug or the other dragons came into this part of the world, and before the goblins came into the hills out of the North. I cannot say, though I fancy the last is the true tale. He is not the sort of person to ask questions of."

That… actually sounded as if Beorn stemmed from some tribe of ancient shaman, that transported themselves here from Earth through a ritual. The only thing Binns ever talked about beside the Goblin wars was really, _really_ ancient history, back before the Muggle Egyptians started to write.

The Ancient Shaman Tribes were independent groups of Wizards and Witches, living in Africa, that used magic through feathers, which until Solana had left nobody had been able to replicate. The feathers were laid into patterns around a bonfire, until a rainbow-coloured carpet of feathers stretched out from the fire, and then, for a reason nobody really understood, the Shaman started dancing on the feather-carpet. The little records of that era had said that the bonfire would light up into a colour unique to each ritual, before the ritual would complete and the desired magic would commence – ranging from a thunderbolt into the enemies' camp to the instant building of a wooden hut.

These Shaman all called themselves skin-changers, as they could transform themselves into a single non-magical animal of their choice; the Shaman would choose an animal, and that animal would be their Animagus form for the rest of their life.

The reason Solana was suspecting that Beorn stemmed from an ancient tribe of Shaman was that, back then, there were already magical civilizations in every single continent, though none had figured out how to transform into an animal. Thousands of years later, when the Ancient Shaman Tribes had all but died out, a Chinese woman had figured out how to transform into an animal – she called it the Animagus.

Of course, there was also the possibility that Beorn had absolutely nothing to do with Shaman, Africa, or Earth in general, but Solana didn't like to think that.

Solana was broken out of her thoughts by Gandalf, who continued his lecture about Beorn – he had only stopped talking because there had been a rather steep hill, and Gandalf wasn't exactly in his prime anymore.

"At any rate," Gandalf said, "he is under no enchantment but his own. He lives in an oak-wood and has a great wooden house; and as a man he keeps cattle and horses which are nearly as marvellous as himself. They work for him and talk to him. He does not eat them; neither does he hunt or eat wild animals. He keeps hives and hives of great fierce bees, and lives most on cream and honey. As a bear he ranges far and wide. I once saw him sitting all alone on the top of the Carrock – that is what he calls the rock the Eagles set us down upon – at night, watching the moon sinking towards the Misty Mountains, and I heard him growl in the tongue of bears: _'The day will come when they will perish and I shall go back!'_ That is why I believe he once came from the mountains himself."

Everyone now had plenty to think about, and no more questions were asked. They still had a long way to go, after all, and there was more time for questions later.

It was a refreshingly calm walk to Beorn's house.

* * *

**Review Replies!**

**Dainm: It's a really good idea – like, **_**really**_** good – but I'm afraid that I have no idea how that would work out. You should post it as a challenge, though, with a female Bilbo or something!**

**Skendo: See the A/N at the beginning of the chapter.**

**Dinosaur Imperial Soldier: Yes, of course they are. Why wouldn't they?**

**Hamof: I know, I know, but I love input from readers – it tells me that people care enough about my story to actually spend time of their day to write something. As for your question, please see the A/N at the beginning of the chapter.**

**Leez: The reason she is making splashes and waves everywhere she goes, as you put it, is because of a pet peeve of mine; characters that don't affect the storyline whatsoever. I have read this in some of the other HP/LotR crossovers, and it really, **_**really**_** bugs me; the best example of this is in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, where – I won't spoil anything, don't worry – everything happens as it would have without Indiana Jones there. That is the main reason why I have Solana affect the storyline this much.**

**HomeByTwilight: I apologize for the long wait. The frequency of the updates was getting to me, and I felt like taking a break – like when you play a computer game, for example an MMORPG, for an entire week every second you have a bit of free time before suddenly realizing that you don't feel like playing anymore and take a month-long break. You understand what I'm sayin', brah? (It's nice to know that some of my older readers haven't given up on this story, by the way.)**

**And, as always, a thanks to the other reviewers.**


	10. Chapter 10: An interesting tale

**A/N This Chapter went on for quite a lot longer than expected, but I simply couldn't find a good place to stop – this is, incidentally, also the reason why this took so long to write. I'm sorry for the wait, but I promise that I won't drop Erinqua for three months again, if you were worried about that.**

* * *

_Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor;  
but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung and played, lo!  
I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done.  
And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite.  
For he that attempted this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'_

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

* * *

**Chapter 10: An interesting tale**

The first sign that the party received that they were near Beorn's house was when they noticed great patches of flowers, all of the same kinds as if they had been planted there. The second sign was when an absolutely _humongous _bee zoomed past Solana's ear and started sucking on the plants. Solana had no doubt that, should that bee sting one of the dwarves, they would swell up to twice their own height.

"We are getting near," Gandalf announced suddenly, after watching the bees for a few seconds. "This is the edge of his bee-pastures."

Not even five minutes later, they came upon a belt of tall, ancient oaks; and past that laid a high thorn-hedge through which one couldn't see nor scramble. "You had better wait here," The old wizard said to the dwarves, "and when I call or whistle begin to come after me—you will see the way I go—but only in pairs, mind, about five minutes between each pair of you. Bombur is fattest and will do for two, he had better come alone and last. Come on, Miss Potter! There is a gate somewhere round this way." And with that he went off along the hedge, taking a suddenly nervous Solana with him.

Soon, the pair of Istari stumbled upon a wooden gate, high enough for horses to be unable to jump over and broad enough for two to pass through side-by-side, beyond which they could see gardens and a cluster of low wooden buildings, some thatched and made of unshaped logs: Solana could spot barns, stables, sheds, and a long low wooden house. Inside on the southward side of the great hedge were rows and rows of hives with bell-shaped tops made of straw. They were too far away to hear the bees right now, but once the two started walking down the path, they would more than likely hear them.

Gandalf pushed open the heavy creaking gate and, accompanied by Solana, went down a wide track towards the house. Some horses, very sleek and well-groomed, trotted up across the grass and looked at them intently with very intelligent faces; then off they galloped to the buildings. By now, they had slowly come closer to the bees, and the noise of the giant bees flying to and fro and crawling in and out filled all the air. Solana subtly put Gandalf in between her and the bees, so that should the bees decide to sting someone, they would sting the older wizard first.

From the amused glance Gandalf shot her, she wasn't as subtle as she thought she was.

"They have gone to tell him of the arrival of strangers," said Gandalf, commenting on the horses that had galloped off.

Soon they reached a courtyard, three walls of which were formed by the wooden house and its two long wings. In the middle there laid a large oaken trunk with many lopped branches beside it. Standing near was a huge man with a thick black beard and hair, and large, bare arms and legs with knotted muscles. He was clothed in a tunic of wool down to his knees, and was leaning on a large axe – Solana was sure other, straight girls, like Lavender and Parvati, would have found him extremely drool-worthy. The horses were standing by him with their noses at his shoulder.

"Here they are!" The man said to the horses. "They don't look dangerous. You can be off!" He laughed a great rolling laugh, put down his axe and came forward.

"Who are you and what do you want?" he asked gruffly, standing in front of them and towering tall above Gandalf and Solana. The witch could easily see what Gandalf meant when he described Beorn; he wasn't exactly the most friendly fellow.

"I am Gandalf the Grey, a Wizard." Greeted the wizard calmly.

"Never heard of you," growled Beorn, before turning to Solana. "And who are you?"

Solana was about to answer, but Gandalf interjected with, "That is Miss Potter, a witch of good skill and unimpeachable reputation. I am currently teaching her." With a glance at the old Wizard, Solana curtsied. "As I said, I am a wizard," continued Gandalf. "I have heard of you, if you have not heard of me; but perhaps you have heard of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood?"

"Yes; not a bad fellow as wizards go, I believe. I used to see him now and again," said Beorn with a nod. "Well, now I know who you are, or who you say you are. What do you want?"

"To tell you the truth, we have lost our means of transportation and nearly lost our way, and are rather in need of help, or at least advice. We have had a rather bad time with goblins in the mountains, you see."

"Goblins?" said the big man a bit less gruffly. "O ho, so you've been having trouble with them have you? What did you go near them for?"

"We did not mean to." Solana answered for Gandalf. "They surprised us at night in a pass we had to cross; we were coming out of the Lands over West into these countries – it is a long tale."

"Then you had better come inside and tell me some of it, if it won't take all day," said Beorn, leading the way through a dark door that opened out of the courtyard into the house.

Following him they found themselves in a wide hall with a fire-place in the middle. Though it was summer there was a wood-fire burning and the smoke was rising to the blackened rafters in search of the way out through an opening in the roof. They passed through this dim hall, lit only by the fire and the hole above it, and came through another smaller door into a sort of veranda propped on wooden posts made of single tree-trunks. It faced south and was still warm and filled with the light of the westering sun which slanted into it, and fell golden on the garden full of flowers that came right up to the steps. Solana thought it was beautiful, and said so; the only acknowledgement Beorn made was a grunt, presumably in thanks.

The three sat on wooden benches while Gandalf, with the help of Solana, began telling their tale. "I was coming over the mountains with a friend or two..." Gandalf said, before being interrupted by Beorn.

"Or two? I can only see one, and a frail one at that."

Solana frowned angrily, and said, "I'll have you know that I can kill you in hundreds of ways, all depending on how I twitch my hand and, should I wish to, which words I pronounce. I can stop your heartbeat, levitate a stone to crush your head and make your brain mush, I can make an iron spike out of nothing and shoot it through your chest, I can enter your mind, remove all of your memories, instincts, and skills, leaving you less than a vegetable, I can turn you into a praying mantis before introducing you to a female one – did you know the females eat the heads of anyone they mate with? – I can make your own bees sting you to death, I can make your eyeballs and genitals explode without killing you, I can spill out your organs without killing you, and then force-feed them to you before making them explode, I can –"

"Solana!" A rather pale Gandalf interrupted, glancing at an equally pale Beorn worriedly. "I think that's enough."

Solana shrugged, not at all bothered by the increasingly gruesome descriptions; she had dabbled in the Dark Arts in order to combat them more efficiently, and some of those spells were rather useful when you had a group of people you wanted to interrogate; make one of them die a death as gruesome as her last example, and they all talk immediately.

Gandalf, meanwhile, continued talking, only a bit less pale than before. "To tell you the truth, I did not like to bother you with a lot of us, until I found out if you were busy. I will give a call, if I may."

Beorn, back to his gruff personality, said, "Go on, call away!"

So Gandalf gave a long shrill whistle, and Thorin and Dori came round the house by the garden path and stood bowing low before them.

"One or three you meant, I see!" said Beorn. "But these aren't humans, they are dwarves!"

"Thorin Oakenshield, at your service!" Thorin said, surprisingly pleasantly.

"Dori at your service!" Followed his fellow dwarf.

"I don't need your service, thank you," said Beorn, "but I expect you need mine. I am not overly fond of dwarves; but if it is true you are Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, I believe, and that your companion is respectable, and that you are enemies of goblins and are not up to any mischief in my lands—what are you up to, by the way?"

"They are on their way to visit the land of their fathers, away east beyond Mirkwood," put in Gandalf, apparently recovered from Solana's earlier speech, "and it is entirely an accident that we are in your lands at all. We were crossing by the High Pass that should have brought us to the road that lies to the south of your country, when we were attacked by the evil goblins—as I was about to tell you."

"Go on telling, then!"

"There was a terrible storm; the stone-giants were out hurling rocks, and at the head of the pass we took refuge in a cave, the hobbit and I and several of our companions..."

"Do you call two several?"

"Well, no. As a matter of fact there were more than two." Solana had to stifle a giggle at how Gandalf had evaded the question.

"Where are they? Killed, eaten, gone home?" The dwarves looked rather insulted at this, as it was unthinkable to them that one of them would give up on their mission.

"Well, no. They don't seem all to have come when I whistled. Shy, I expect. You see, we are very much afraid that we are rather a lot for you to entertain."

"Go on, whistle again! I am in for a party, it seems, and one or two more won't make much difference," growled Beorn, making Solana stifle a giggle again.

Gandalf whistled again; but Nori and Ori were there almost before he had stopped, for, if you remember, Gandalf had told them to come in pairs every five minutes.

"Hello!" said Beorn. "You came pretty quick – where were you hiding? Come on my jack-in-the-boxes!"

"Nori at your service, Ori at..." they began; but Beorn interrupted them.

"Thank you! When I want your help I will ask for it. Sit down, and let's get on with this tale, or it will be supper-time before it is ended."

"As soon as we were asleep," went on Gandalf, "a crack at the back of the cave opened; goblins came out and grabbed our troop of ponies –"

"Troop of ponies? What were you – a travelling circus? Or were you carrying lots of goods? Or do you always call six a troop?"

"O no! As a matter of fact there were more than six ponies, for there were more than six of us—and well, here are two more!" Just at that moment Balin and Dwalin appeared and bowed so low that their beards swept the stone floor. The big man was frowning at first, but they did their best to be frightfully polite, and kept on nodding and bending and bowing and waving their hoods before their knees (in proper dwarf-fashion), till he stopped frowning and burst into a chuckling laugh, along with Solana, who burst out in giggles; they looked extremely comical, as if they truly were a travelling circus. Beorn, it seemed, had the same thoughts.

"Troop was right," he said. "A fine comic one. Come in my merry men, and what are your names? I don't want your service just now, only your names; and then sit down and stop wagging!"

"Balin and Dwalin," they said, not daring to be offended, and sat flop on the floor looking rather surprised.

"Now go on again!" said Beorn to the wizard.

"Where was I? O yes – the ponies were grabbed, but before they could grab us, Solana apparently woke up and killed all of them in a flash –"

"Good!" growled Beorn. "Pesky goblins are always plaguing the Carrock; I have to chase 'em away, sometimes."

"—and slipped inside the crack before we knew what was happening. We followed her down into a small hall, where the ponies were, and we all arrived just in time to see Solana tumble down from exhaustion; the walls, floor, and ceiling were splattered with blood and goblin parts, and apart from some more breakable objects everything, including the horses, was taken back by us.

"Then, we went into the main hall – Solana was still sleeping, being carried by one of the horses – and it was crowded with goblins. The goblin King was there, with thirty or forty armed guards. We killed the armed guards – apparently a wizard and a dozen dwarves can do a lot of damage–"

"A dozen!" Beorn interrupted. "That's the first time I've heard eight called a dozen. Or have you still got some more jacks that haven't yet come out of their boxes?"

"Well, yes, there are two more here right now – Fili and Kili, I think." Announced Solana, as those two now appeared and stood smiling and bowing.

"That's enough!" said Beorn. "Sit down and be quiet! Now go on, Gandalf!"

So Gandalf went on with the tale, telling about the goblin King's 'epic' defeat, the fight in the dark, the discovery of the lower gate, and their horror when they found that Miss Potter had been dropped somewhere along the way. "We counted ourselves and found that there was no female. There were only fourteen of us left!"

"Fourteen! That's the first time I've heard one from ten leave fourteen. You mean nine, or else you haven't told me yet all the names of your party."

Solana sighed suddenly, this was getting ridiculous. "We are with fifteen; Gandalf, thirteen dwarves, and I. The last few dwarves should be coming soon." And indeed, Oin and Gloin came up the path just then, greeting Beorn jovially.

"Ah, yes! Well, let them all come! Hurry up, sit down, come on!" Beorn glanced around, before shrugging. "And three more isn't going to be a problem. If need be, you can still sleep with the bees. Now, go on, on with the tale!" Beorn did not show it more than he could help, but really he had begun to get very interested. You see, in the old days he had known the very part of the mountains that Gandalf was describing. He nodded and he growled, when he heard of the hobbit's reappearance and of their scramble down the stone-slide and of the wolf-ring in the woods.

When Gandalf came to their climbing into trees with the wolves all underneath, he got up and strode about and muttered: "I wish I had been there! I would have given them more than fireworks!"

"Well," said Gandalf very glad to see that his tale was making a good impression, "I did the best I could. There we were with the wolves going mad underneath us and the forest beginning to blaze in places, before Solana interjected; she fired off quite a few fireballs, killing all of the wolves. That was when the goblins came down from the hills and discovered us. That was when the Eagles came to our rescue, picking up our party of fifteen and –"

"Good heavens!" growled Beorn. "Don't pretend that Eagles can't count. They can. Twelve isn't fifteen and they know it."

"And so do I." Gandalf smiled. "There were Bifur and Bofur as well. I haven't ventured to introduce them before, but here they are."

As if on cue, in came Bifur and Bofur. "And me!" gasped Bombur in one of his less wise moments, puffing up behind. He was fat, and also angry at being left till last. He refused to wait five minutes, and followed immediately after the other two. Even people as wise as Bombur had impatience.

"Well, now there are fifteen of you; and since Eagles can count, I suppose that is all that there were up the trees. Now perhaps we can finish this story without any more interruptions." Suddenly, Solana saw how clever Gandalf had been – and, unconsciously, she had helped him along. The interruptions had really made Beorn more interested in the story, and the story had kept him from sending the dwarves off at once like suspicious beggars. He never invited people into his house, if he could help it. He had very few friends and they lived a good way away; and he never invited more than a couple of these to his house at a time. Now he had got fifteen strangers sitting in his porch!

By the time the wizard had finished his tale and had told of the eagles' rescue and of how they had all been brought to the Carrock, omitting Solana's transformative abilities, the sun had fallen behind the peaks of the Misty Mountains and the shadows were long in Beorn's beautiful garden.

"A very good tale!" Beorn said finally. "The best I have heard for a long while. If all beggars could tell such a good one, they might find me kinder. You may be making it all up, of course, but you deserve a supper for the story all the same. Let's have something to eat!"

"Yes please!" The dwarves all said together, with the two Istari nodding along. "Thank you very much!"

Inside the hall it was now quite dark. Beorn clapped his hands, and in trotted four beautiful white ponies and several large long-bodied grey dogs. Beorn said something to them in a queer language like animal noises turned into talk. They went out again and soon came back carrying torches in their mouths, which they lit at the fire and stuck in low brackets on the pillars of the hall about the central hearth. The dogs could stand on their hind-legs when they wished, and carry things with their fore-feet. Quickly they got out boards and trestles from the side walls and set them up near the fire. It was bizarre to look at, and on Solana's Scale of Weird Fucked Up Things, ranging from 1.0 to 10.0, this definitely made an 9.0 (The only thing on the S'sSoWFUT that made a 10 thus far was Monty Python's Holy Grail).

Then the bleating of sheep was heard, and seconds later some snow-white sheep led by a large coal-black ram came in. One bore a white cloth embroidered at the edges with figures of animals; others bore on their broad backs trays with bowls and platters and knives and wooden spoons, which the dogs took and quickly laid on the trestle-tables. These were very low, low enough for even a hobbit to sit at comfortably – though nobody knew why Beorn had them, as Beorn was pretty much the opposite of a hobbit. Beside them a pony pushed three low-seated benches with wide rush-bottoms and little short thick legs for Gandalf, Solana, and Thorin, while at the far end he put Beorn's big black chair of the same sort, in which he sat with his great legs stuck far out under the table.

These were all the chairs he had in his hall, though the rest of the dwarves were not forgotten. The other ponies came in rolling round drum-shaped sections of logs, smoothed and polished, and low enough even for Bilbo; so soon they were all seated at Beorn's table, and the hall had not seen such a gathering for many a year.

There they had a supper, or a dinner, such as they had not had since they left the Last Homely House in the West and said good-bye (or _Novaer_) to Elrond. The light of the torches, the two tall red beeswax candles on the table, and the fire flickered about them, setting quite the comfortable mood. While they ate, Beorn told tales of the wild lands on this side of the mountains, and especially of the dark and dangerous wood, that lay outstretched far to North and South a day's ride before them, barring their way to the East, the terrible forest of Mirkwood.

The dwarves listened and shook their beards, and Solana steadily grew more worried, for they knew that they must soon venture into that forest and that after the mountains it was the worst of the perils they had to pass before they came to the dragon's stronghold. When dinner was over the dwarves began to tell tales of their own, but Beorn seemed to be getting steadily more drowsy and paid little attention to them. The Dwarves spoke most of gold and silver and jewels and the making of things by smith-craft, and Beorn did not appear to care for such things: there were no things of gold or silver in his hall, and few things save the knives were made of metal at all. Solana amused herself with the tales, though, imagining the large halls of Erebor in her mind, filled with jovial dwarves and happy Dwarven children running around, scooting between the legs of their parents shyly when someone unfamiliar approaches.

They sat long at the table with their wooden drinking-bowls filled with mead, or, in Solana's case, homemade red wine. Eventually, the dark night came outside, and the fires in the middle of the hall were built with fresh logs, and the torches were put out, and still they sat in the light of the dancing flames with the pillars of the house standing tall behind them, and dark at the top like trees of the forest. Whether it was magic or not, it seemed to Solana that he heard a sound like wind in the branches stirring in the rafters, and the hoot of owls. Soon she began to nod with sleep and the voices seemed to grow far away, until she woke with a start.

The great door had creaked and slammed. Beorn was gone. The dwarves were sitting cross-legged on the floor round the fire, and they began to sing, accompanied by Solana's humming, for though she didn't know the words she recognized the song, and one of her favourite verses, the only one she could sing along with, went like this, sung in a rather low tone for any woman;

"_The wind was on the withered heath,_

"_but in the forest stirred no leaf: _

"_there shadows lay by night and day,_

"_and dark things silent crept beneath._

"_The wind came down from mountains cold,_

"_and like a tide it roared and rolled;_

"_the branches groaned, the __forest__ moaned,_

"_and leaves were laid upon the mould._

"_The wind went on from West to East;_

"_all movement in the forest ceased,_

"_but shrill and harsh across the marsh,_

"_its whistling voices were released._

"_The grasses hissed, their tassels bent,_

"_the reeds were rattling—on it went,_

"_o'er shaken pool under heavens cool,_

"_where racing clouds were torn and rent._

"_It passed the lonely Mountain bare,_

"_and swept above the dragon's lair:_

"_there black and dark lay boulders stark_

"_and flying smoke was in the air._

"_It left the world and took its flight_

"_over the wide seas of the night._

"_The moon set sail upon the gale,_

"_and stars were fanned to leaping light._

And, at last, when all the singing was over, Gandalf announced it was time for bed, for they had many miles to cover come tomorrow. And he warned them about what Beorn had said earlier that evening, not to stray outside, for there were many predators out there hoping on an easy Dwarven or human meal. Then, they all went to sleep, and before anyone knew it, morning came again.

* * *

**Review Replies!**

**Chaosrin: You have some very good ideas, my friend. Unfortunately, there are several complications with the Beorn is Sirius idea; the first, and most obvious, is their respective alternate forms. Beorn is a bear, and Sirius a grim. I think that someone would notice the difference.**

**As for your idea about the prejudiced Menfolk, I might actually incorporate that, somehow. Like 'all males are superior, go away, little missy, men are talking'. Yes, that might actually work. Could you remind me in a review when we get near Laketown? Otherwise I might forget.**

**And Mt. Doom and the ring… well, you'll just have to see. I already have an idea for that.**

**Hamof: That's good to hear; if I write something that offends a lot of people without me knowing – like, having Solana form her hands into some shape that is offensive in another culture to do a piece of complicated magic or something – then I will want to immediately change it. And I also almost never review, let alone follow or favourite – though that might just be because I'm lazy – so I can't really blame you.**

**Diogo: Well, it is a rather slow-moving story, I admit, but the Hobbit is even more so. And seriously? Moving through five chapters within a minute? You shouldn't read books, or fanfiction, you should go watch a movie.**

**And to all of the other reviewers, a Thank You, just like every other time.**


	11. Chapter 11: Final days of rest

_Then the Ainur were afraid, and they did not yet comprehend the words that were said to them;  
and Melkor was filled with shame, of which came secret anger.  
But Ilúvatar arose in splendour, and he went forth from the fair regions that he had made for the Ainur;  
and the Ainur followed him._

* * *

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

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**Chapter 11: Final days of rest**

Solana awoke to the sound of a rather loud thud. Her eyes snapped open – she realized with a start that the sun was already out and shining brightly – and they zeroed in on where the sound came from; it was Bofur, apparently having tripped on the way to wake her up and he was grumbling about it when she giggled.

Bofur shot an annoyed glance at Solana. "Yes, laugh it off." He couldn't contain a twitch of his lips though, finding his ungracefulness rather funny himself. "You need to get up, however, or there will be no breakfast left for you."

In a surprisingly fast move, Solana jumped up and made her way to the porch where, true to Bifur's shouted directions (she understood enough of the Black Language to have a conversation with him now), a large breakfast laid… or what was left of it. What had once undoubtedly been a veritable feast was now reduced to a few toasted sandwiches, two sausages, half a pan of beans, which dwarves apparently didn't like much, and a single egg. With a hungry grin, Solana seated herself at the table and began putting together a full English breakfast, of the kind she had every weekend back home.

"We left this for you, Miss Potter!" A bright voice suddenly came from behind, causing Solana to clamp onto the sandwich she had been holding to her mouth with her teeth and whip around to point her wand at the one who sneaked up on her; Fili and Kili both squeaked in fright and dove to the ground, wrapping their arms around their heads as if it would protect them should Solana suddenly attack. "Please don't hurt us Miss Potter!" Kili begged rather amusingly.

"Yes, please don't!" Fili added.

"We never meant to scare you, Miss Potter!"

"No, we didn't!"

"Stop repeating me, Fili!"

"Yes, please – wait, what?"

Solana had to chuckle at the two brothers' antics, and did so after storing her wand away and placing her egg-beans-and-sausage-sandwich back on the table. Hearing this, Fili and Kili looked up with wide eyes to see Solana looking at them with an amused smile. "Well, it's alright then, if you truly didn't mean it. Now get up off the floor, I'm not going to harm you." She glanced around the garden as the two young Dwarves did as she said. "Where is Gandalf, by the way?"

"Oh! Well, out and about somewhere, I suppose." Kili shrugged and scratched the back of his neck, before taking out a chair and plopping down in it. On the other side of the table, his brother did the same. "He told us last night that we had many miles to cover today, but I am beginning to think that that was just a trick to get us into bed." He shrugged again. "Who knows what goes on the mind of Wizard. Er – no offense."

"None taken."

Oo0oO

It wasn't until supper that Solana saw Gandalf again; during the day, she had set out to find Beorn to ask if he knew about Earth, which took quite a while, given the size of his property. Unfortunately, Beorn was gone as well, so her questions had to wait until that evening.

Gandalf walked in just before sunset, taking a seat at the table where the Dwarves and Solana were eating dinner as if he hadn't just been gone an entire day. The Wizard calmly puffed his pipe as Oin cried out, "Where is our host, and where have you been all day?" Other Dwarves joined in with more questions, all save for Thorin, who was staring at Gandalf rather moodily, because they couldn't move on without either Gandalf or Beorn giving them directions. This continued for around half a minute, until Gandalf held up a hand and they fell quiet.

"One question at a time please – and none 'till after supper! I haven't had a bite since breakfast, save for a small hand of blueberries from a small bush and a walnut that a passing squirrel was kind enough to bestow upon me."

Despite their anxiousness to get answers from Gandalf, the old Wizard ate calmly, as if there weren't thirteen people peering at him while a fourteenth blew colourful smoke rings that floated around his head. At last, Gandalf pushed away his plate and jug – to the Dwarves' annoyance he had eaten two whole loaves (with masses of butter and honey and clotted cream) and drunk at least a quart of mead, which took quite a while – and he took out his pipe as well, putting a bit of tobacco inside.

"I shall answer the second question first," Gandalf announced, "But bless me! This is a splendid place for smoke rings indeed, Miss Potter! I think I will join you, if you do not mind. Thorin, do join in."

And indeed, for a long time the dwarves could not get a word more out of him, he was so busy sending smoke rings dodging round the pillars of the hall and around Solana's creations, changing them into all sorts of different shapes and colours, and setting them at last chasing one another out of the hole in the roof, being careful not to collide with Solana's smoke creatures. They must have looked very queer from outside, popping out into the air one after another, green, blue, red, silver-grey, yellow, white; big ones, little ones; little ones dodging through big ones and joining into figure-eights, and going off like a flock of birds into the distance, while small Phoenixes, Dragons, and Unicorns made their way around and through them in full flight and gallop, dispersing the smoke figurines they went through.

"I have been picking out bear-tracks." Gandalf said at last, when the sun had disappeared beyond the mountains, and the stars were visible outside. "There must have been a regular bears' meeting outside here last night. I soon saw that Beorn could not have made all of the tracks; there were far too many of them, and they were of various sizes too. I should say there were little bears, large bears, ordinary bears, and gigantic big bears, all dancing outside from dark to nearly dawn. They came from almost every direction, except from the west over the river, from the Mountains. In that direction only one set of footprints led—none coming, only ones going away from here. I followed these as far as the Carrock. There they disappeared into the river, but the water was too deep and strong beyond the rock for me to cross. It is easy enough, as you remember, to get from this bank to the Carrock by the ford, but on the other side is a cliff standing up from a swirling channel. I had to walk miles before I found a place where the river was wide and shallow enough for me to wade and swim, and then miles back again to pick up the tracks again. By that time it was too late for me to follow them far. They went straight off in the direction of the pine-woods on the east side of the Misty Mountains, where we had our pleasant little party with the Wargs the night before last. And now I think I have answered your first question, too," ended Gandalf, and he sat a long while silent.

Solana frowned. "So – it was Beorn that went over that river, back in the direction where the Eagles picked us up? Did I get that right?" Gandalf nodded once. "…Why?"

Gandalf shrugged. "To gather information, I suppose. And to see if our story were true. But for now – I do believe there were still songs to be sung?"

The young Istari's lips twitched as the dwarves all happily called out in affirmative and gathered their instruments, before they began to play a piece of jovial music. She hung back when they began to sing, and continued to smoke her pipe along with Gandalf, blowing standard rings for once. And after a large amount of songs, sad, silly, and sophisticated, Gandalf told them once more that it was time to sleep, and that they had a lot of miles to cover the next day; and though everyone turned a sceptical eye at the Wizard, they complied and were all fast asleep on their respective beds before the hour was up.

Oo0oO

Next morning they were all wakened by Beorn himself, who had apparently come home sometime in the night. "So here you all are still!" He said in his usual gruff voice. He glanced over the company and laughed, "Not eaten up by Wargs or goblins or wicked bears yet I see!" Beorn chuckled as Bombur's stomach growled loudly. "You still need your fill of bread and honey, I hear. Come and have some more, I put everything on the table outside!"

And thus, they all went to the table with him. The shape-shifter was jovial for a change; indeed, he seemed to be in a splendidly good humour and set them all laughing, chuckling and giggling with his funny stories. Fortunately, they did not stay curious about where he had been or why he was so nice to them long, for he told them himself. He had been over the river and right back up into the mountains – Beorn was incredibly fast in his bear-form, many times more so than any human in full-sprint. From the burnt wolf-glade he had soon figured out that that part of their story was true, but that was not all he found; he had caught a Warg and a goblin wandering in the woods. From these he had got news: the goblin patrols were still hunting with Wargs for the dwarves, and they were fiercely angry because of the death of the Great Goblin, the chief wolf, and of many of his high-ranking servants. That was what they told him when he forced them, something Solana longed to have seen and helped with, but he guessed there was more wickedness than this afoot, and that a great raid of the whole goblin army with their wolf-allies into the lands shadowed by the mountains might soon be made to find the dwarves, or to take vengeance on the men and creatures that lived there, and who they thought must be sheltering them.

"It was a good story, that of yours," said Beorn at last, when everyone was done with their breakfast and he was nearly done with his story, "but I like it still better now I am sure it is true. You must forgive my not taking your word. If you lived near the edge of Mirkwood, you would take the word of no one that you did not know as well as your brother or better. As it is, I can only say that I have hurried home as fast as I could to see that you were safe, and to offer you any help that I can. I shall think more kindly of both dwarves and the other Wizards – and Witch – after this. Killed the Great Goblin, killed the Great Goblin!" he chuckled fiercely to himself.

"What did you do with the Warg and Goblin?" Gloin asked, curious.

"Come and see!" Beorn chuckled again and led them around the house to the gate, where a goblin's head was stuck on a pike and a Warg's hide hang from a tree. Solana grinned and nodded in approval, while a few of the younger dwarves became slightly green-faced; there was still blood dripping from the goblin's neck, and the Warg's hide hadn't been cleaned thoroughly, and bits and pieces of skin were still attached to the thing. Gandalf, having become used to such sights long ago – though not to the idea of spilling out someone's insides, force-feeding them to the still-alive person, and then making them explode – turned to Beorn and began explaining the reason for their trip across the Misty Mountains, so that the man would be able to give them the most help he could offer, which was quite a lot.

He would provide ponies for each of the dwarves, and horses for Gandalf and Solana, for their journey to the forest. He would lade them with food to last them for weeks with care, and packed so as to be as easy as possible to carry out of habit – Solana had asked him about Earth and her skills as a Witch during breakfast, and the answer she got was "A planet called Earth? You've got a good imagination, missy." – including nuts, flour, sealed jars of dried fruits, and red earthenware pots of honey, and twice-baked cakes that would keep good a long time, and on a little of which they could last long. The making of these was one of Beorn's secrets, but he told them honey was in them, as in most of his foods, and they were good to eat, though they made one thirsty.

Water, Beorn said, they would not need to carry this side of the forest, for there were streams and springs along the road. "But your way through Mirkwood is dark, dangerous and difficult. Water is not easy to find there, nor food. The time is not yet come for nuts – though it may be past and gone indeed before you get to the other side – and nuts are about all that grows there fit for Dwarven or Istari consumption; in there the wild things are dark, queer, and savage. I will provide you with lots of skins for carrying water, and I will give you some bows and arrows. But I doubt very much whether anything you find in Mirkwood will be wholesome to eat or to drink; perhaps you will spot a single rabbit or bird through your entire journey there. There is one stream there, I know, black and strong which crosses the path. That you should neither drink of, nor bathe in; for I have heard that it carries enchantment and a great drowsiness and forgetfulness. And in the dim shadows of that place I do not think you will shoot anything, wholesome or unwholesome, without straying from the path. That you MUST NOT do, for any reason.

"That is all the advice I can give you. Beyond the edge of the forest I cannot help you much; you must depend on your luck and your courage and the food I send with you. At the gate of the forest I must ask you to send back my horses and ponies. But I wish you all speed, and my house is open to you, if ever you come back this way again."

They thanked him, of course, and while Solana, and Gandalf simply said exactly that, the dwarves said farewell with bows and sweepings of their hoods and with many an "at your service, O master of the wide wooden halls!" – or, in the case of Thorin, one of each of those. But their spirits sank at his grave words, and they all felt that the adventure was far more dangerous than they had thought, while all the time, even if they passed all the perils of the road, the dragon was waiting at the end, ready to gobble them up and let them simmer for the rest of eternity in his stomach.

For the rest of the morning, the party was busy with preparations. Soon after midday they ate with Beorn for the last time, and after the amazing meal they mounted the steeds he was lending them, and, bidding him many farewells, they rode off through his gate at a good pace, headed for Mirkwood at last.

* * *

**Review Replies!**

**Chaosrin: Considering the fact that Hogwarts is pretty much stuck in the middle ages, and Arda is as well (**_**Middle**_**-Earth, **_**Middle**_** Ages – see the connection?) I figured Solana would feel very much at home there, not in the need of ovens, fridges, supermarkets and the like to survive. And the reason for sticking this close to the normal storyline is to not lose any readers that have forgotten parts of the Hobbit and can't follow along any more.**

**JohnyS: No, she definitely didn't immerse herself in the dark arts; doing so would mean that she was the second coming of Lucius Malfoy, Melkor, Voldemort, and Sauron at the same time, and Solana definitely isn't a wealthy-as-fuck Valar with a snake fetish and an eye as big as a small country. Right? …Right?**

**Solana is very much a – well, I wouldn't say a feminist, but someone who does **_**not**_** like it when females are looked down upon. Throughout this story you will most likely see this again, if not for a long time. **

**And as for practicing her Crucios… She'll get the chance eventually. Just don't expect it to be anytime soon.**

**The rest of the reviewers get a Thank You, as always.**


	12. Chapter 12: Goodbye to Gandalf

**A/N: It's official! I'm making this into a Tauriel/Solana pairing! The only reason I hadn't done so yet is because I didn't know how to incorporate it, but a few days ago while walking to our village's baker I was suddenly hit by an idea, and I am a bit ashamed to say that I immediately took out a notepad, which I always keep on me for such occasions (it's happened in the past), and started scribbling it down right in the doorway of the shop…**

***Ahem…* In any case, a bit of a shorter chapter this time, but I thought that it would fit better to cut off where I did instead of somewhere where it wouldn't make any sense.**

**Is that okay? It isn't?**

**Well, I don't give a shit.**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

_But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatar said to them: 'Behold your Music!'  
And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing;  
and they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void,  
and it was sustained therein, but was not of it.  
And as they looked and wondered this World began to unfold its history, and it seemed to them that it lived and grew._

\- Excerpt from Tolkien's _Morgoth's Ring_, the tenth instalment of _The History of Middle-Earth_. A piece from the _Ainulindalë_, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

* * *

**Chapter 12: Goodbye to Gandalf**

"Well, here is Mirkwood!" said Gandalf jovially. "The greatest of the forests of the Northern world. I hope you like the look of it." Solana grimaced.

A few hours earlier, the land – which had, prior to that point, been a pleasant mix of grasslands and forests; during the four-day-trip they had even come across a beautiful dale filled with flowers in every colour the company could think of – began to slope up steeply, and it seemed as if a silence began to draw in upon them. Birds began to sing less. There were no more deer; not even rabbits were to be seen. By the time it was nearly afternoon they had reached the eaves of Mirkwood, and they now were resting almost beneath the great overhanging boughs of its outer trees. Their trunks were huge and gnarled, their branches twisted, their leaves were dark and long, and creepy Ivy grew on them and trailed along the ground.

"Now you must send back those excellent ponies – and your horse, Solana – that you have borrowed." Gandalf continued, and even as the dwarves opened their mouths to protest, Gandalf cut them off by saying, "You fools! Beorn is not as far off as you seem to think, and you had better keep your promises anyway, for he is a bad enemy. Miss Solana's eyes are sharper than yours, if you have not seen each night after dark a great bear going along with us or sitting far off in the moon watching our camps. Not only to guard you and guide you, but to keep an eye on the ponies and horses too. Beorn may be your friend, but he loves his animals as his children. You do not guess what kindness he has shown you in letting dwarves and Istari ride them so far and so fast, nor what would happen to you, if you tried to take them into the forest."

Solana nodded in agreement; as soon as they had left Beorn's hedges through the eastern gate, she had spotted Beorn slipping out of his compound in bear-form – though how he was able to slip away as a bear, she would never know – and, when she checked a few hours later, the large shape-shifter was still behind them. She had no doubts that, should the dwarves be foolish enough to try and steal the ponies, Beorn would swoop down and attack them, undoubtedly causing a few nasty injuries if not outright killing some dwarves, which would be quite inconvenient, considering the distance they still had to cross.

"What about your horse, then?" Thorin asked gruffly. "You didn't mention sending it back."

"I didn't, because I am not sending it."

"But what about your promise, then?" Nori asked, and Gandalf smiled a bit.

"That will be fine, for it is not as if I am planning to take the horse for myself, or go somewhere else with it; no, I am riding it back!"

It was then that the company realized that Gandalf was going to leave them right then, before they entered Mirkwood, quite possibly the most perilous part of their journey, Smaug notwithstanding; immediately, everyone began to protest, but Gandalf stood firm against their complaints.

"Now, we had sorted this all out before, when we landed on the Carrock," he said. "It is no use arguing. I have, as I told you, some pressing business away south; and I am already late through bothering with you people. We may meet again before all is over, and then again of course we may not. That depends on your luck and on your courage and sense; I am sending Miss Potter with you, and you all know that she has more about her than you guess." Gandalf shot a wink at Solana, who smiled back softly as the dwarves save for Thorin all suddenly looked much happier. "So cheer up, and don't look so glum! This is your expedition, after all, and not mine. Think of the treasure at the end, and forget about the forest and the dragon – at any rate, until tomorrow morning!"

The dwarves all cheered at the thought of treasure – Well, all except Thorin, because he was always grumpy, though even he still cracked a smile, Bombur, because he never said anything, and Bifur, who had learned long ago to stay silent unless everyone became angry at him for bursting their eardrums; the latter two were clearly extremely happy, however – and the rest of the night was filled with happy talk and thoughts about treasure and reclaiming Erebor, and, under a magical dome made by Solana to prevent the smoke from rising above the trees, Thorin, Solana and Gandalf blew smoke rings for what could possibly be the last time together.

Oo0oO

When morning came the next day, Gandalf still said the same, despite feeble last-minute protests. So now there was nothing left to do but to fill their water-skins at a clear spring they found close to the forest-gate, and unpack the ponies. After the packages were charmed to be weightless, they distributed them as evenly as they could – it wasn't fair for someone to be carrying only a single bag while someone else had tons upon their backs, after all – and, despite Solana's protests, she ended up not carrying anything.

"Don't you worry!" Fili piped up eventually. "Because of you, the packs are weightless, so it's really no problem!"

"No, indeed!" Kili chimed in. "And you need to be free to fight if there is need to, right?" After quite a few more logical reasons for Solana to not be saddled with packs, she acquiesced and went back to helping them pack.

Then at last, they said good-bye to the dwarves' ponies and Solana's horse, who turned their heads for home. They trotted off quickly, seemingly very glad to put their tail-ends to the shadow of Mirkwood. As they went away Solana spotted a bear leaving the shadow of the trees and shambling off quickly after them. She watched Beorn go with a smile, suddenly realizing that he was a lot like Hagrid, only with an Animagus form and a bit of a temper.

Now came the time for Gandalf too to say farewell. The dwarves all sat around gloomily, and Solana had to fight the urge to giggle, though she ultimately failed, after spotting Thorin throw an adult version of a temper tantrum against Gandalf out of everyone's earshot.

"Good-bye!" said Gandalf to the company, astride upon his horse as he looked at them. "Goodbye to you all, good-bye! Straight through the forest is your way now. Don't stray off the track! – if you do, it is a thousand to one you will never find it again and never get out of Mirkwood; and then I don't suppose I, or anyone else, will ever see you again."

"Do we really have to go through?" groaned Solana, already imagining the state of her dress when they exited the woods – even though she was a rather badass magical killing machine of a woman, she was still a woman, and wanted to look good when she killed a few more goblins.

"Yes, you do!" said the wizard with a frown, "At least, if you want to get to the other side. You must either go through or give up your quest. And I am not going to allow you to back out now, Miss Potter. I am ashamed of you for thinking of it. You have got to look after all these dwarves for me," he laughed.

"No, no, no!" Solana said quickly. "I didn't mean that! Of course not! I meant, is there no way around?" She shot a glance at the woods. "It… doesn't exactly look inviting."

Gandalf chuckled. "There is, if you care to go two hundred miles or so out of your way north, and twice that south. But you wouldn't get a safe path even then. There are simply no safe paths in this part of the world, unless you find a way to go through the air, and even then there are unfriendly Eagles around. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go. Before you could get around Mirkwood in the North, you would be right among the slopes of the Grey Mountains, and they are simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs of the worst description. Before you could get round it in the South, you would get into the land of the Necromancer; and even you, Solana, won't need me to tell you tales of that black sorcerer. I don't advise you to go anywhere near the places overlooked by his dark tower! Stick to the forest-track, keep your spirits up, hope for the best, and with a tremendous slice of luck you may come out one day and see the Long Marshes lying below you, and beyond them, high in the East, the Lonely Mountain where dear old Smaug lives, though I hope he is not expecting you."

"Very comforting you are to be sure," growled Thorin. "Good-bye! If you won't come with us, you had better get off without any more talk!"

"Good-bye then, and really good-bye!" Gandalf said as he turned his horse and rode down into the West, waving behind him only once. But before he had passed completely out of hearing he turned and put his hands to his mouth, and called to them. The company heard his voice come faintly: "Good-bye! Be good, take care of yourselves – and for the Valar's sake, DON'T LEAVE THE BLOODY PATH!"

Then he galloped away and was soon lost to sight. "Yes, goodbye and go away!" grunted Thorin, all the more angry because the dwarves were all really filled with dismay and, even though they would never admit it, fright at losing him, for now began the most dangerous part of all the journey. They each shouldered the heavy pack and the water-skin which was their share, once more told Solana not to worry about carrying stuff, and turned from the sun to plunge inside the darkness of Mirkwood Forest.

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**Review Replies!**

**JohnyS: Hmm... you know what? You are absolutely, completely, and utterly correct. I hadn't thought that much about it until now, but you described it perfectly. As for the being desperate enough stuff… I have other ideas about that, but they would be in the far, far future, during the gap in time between the Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring, most likely. **

**Perhaps during the Battle of the Five Armies, she will use some of the dark arts, or if (yes, I said if, because I'm not sure if I will follow canon on this) Kili, Fili, or Thorin die and she is nearby and wants revenge by torturing the killers to death. I don't know yet.**

**Guest: I might deviate from canon, but I don't think I will – at least, not that much. The battles will all be different, of course, and the Tauriel/Solana pairing will of course make things different, and I have ideas for all the way at the end of the Hobbit, how stuff will go there, but I'm not sure about anything beyond that. The Hobbit is really well written, remember, and there are no loose ends that Gandalf went after with which Solana can help – at least, not without skipping past Mirkwood and Tauriel, which I definitely don't want. If an idea suddenly comes at me, I'll incorporate it, but I haven't gotten anything planned.**

**And, of course, thanks to the rest of the reviewers. It's really nice to see that so many people are interested in this.**


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